Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATHS OF MEMBERS

Madam Speaker: I regret to have to report to the House the deaths of Mr. Roger Stott, Member for Wigan, and the right hon. Alan Clark, Member for Kensington and Chelsea. I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House will join me in mourning the loss of our two colleagues during the recess, and in extending our sympathy to the families and friends of those Members.

WRITS ISSUED DURING THE ADJOURNMENT

MADAM SPEAKER acquainted the House that during the Adjournment, pursuant to the Recess Elections Act 1975, the Chairman of Ways and Means on her behalf had issued warrants to the Clerk of the Crown for new writs for the electing of Members to serve in this present Parliament for Wigan, in the room of Roger Stott, Esquire, deceased, and for Hamilton, South, in the room of the right hon. George Robertson, who has been called to the House of Peers.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CITY OF LONDON (WARD ELECTIONS) BILL (By Order)

Order for further consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered on Tuesday 26 October.

Oral Answers to Questions — HEALTH

The Secretary of State was asked—

Brain Scans

Miss Anne McIntosh: What is the (a) length of the waiting list and (b) average waiting time for a brain scan for those aged (i) under 18 years and (ii) 18 years and over; and if he will make a statement. [92584]

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): Brain scans are diagnostic procedures carried out in radiology departments. During the quarter ended June 1999, the average waiting time for a radiology out-patient appointment was two weeks.

Miss McIntosh: I congratulate the Secretary of State for Health on his appointment, and welcome him to the

Dispatch Box in that capacity. Is he familiar with the tragic case of Shaun Johnstone, aged 16, of Boroughbridge, who was not given a brain scan within two weeks but was asked to wait two months? Perhaps that reflects on the present obsession with the distortion of waiting lists in the health service, with, in that case, tragic consequences. The father is especially concerned to raise the question of confidentiality, as neither the patient, who was 16 and therefore no longer a minor, nor the father, was told of the diagnosis, which could not be confirmed before the boy died. Will the Secretary of State make a ruling on that case?

Mr. Milburn: I am aware of the case of Shaun Johnstone, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in passing on our condolences to the family. The case was especially sad, not least because it is extremely unusual for a young person of Shaun's age to have a cerebral tumour. I understand, however, that both Shaun's general practitioner and the consultant neurologist who dealt with the case believe that even if Shaun had attended his first out-patient appointment, which I understand he was unable to do, he was suffering from an inoperable tumour, so treatment would have made no significant difference. I know, however, that that is of little comfort to Shaun's parents, other relatives and friends.
Of course I shall gladly look into the case. I understand that the health authority has already done so, and the parents have been advised that the most appropriate course of action would be to approach the health service commissioner. I strongly advise them to do that, but I will still look into the case.
The general point that the hon. Lady made is wrong. We are bringing waiting lists down for in-patients, and we will continue to do so, but there is now a change of tack. We are ensuring, in particular, that there will be faster and more convenient care across the piece in the national health service. We will begin with the core priority areas of cancer and heart disease. It is important to improve those services; we have already set in place a two-week standard for patients referred with suspected breast cancer, and I want to improve on that.

Mr. Nick Harvey: I too congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. As some people are waiting for brain scans for as long as nine weeks in Oxford and 16 weeks in Birmingham—as he has acknowledged, none of those waits shows up on the Government's much vaunted waiting lists measure—and as yesterday he seemed to be reorienting his priorities for the health service, will he follow the example of the new Scottish Administration and recognise that measuring waiting lists is not the right thing to do? Will he put the emphasis on waiting times instead? Surely what is of concern to patients is how long they have to wait for the totality of their treatment, not how many people have the misfortune to be in the same boat.

Mr. Milburn: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post, too. We have made it clear from the outset that it will take some time to get waiting lists down. They are coming down and they will continue to come down. The drive on waiting lists will be unrelenting. They are now about 70,000 lower than those that we inherited from the previous Government, when numbers were rising at a record rate. That has taken some time to get right.


We shall continue to get waiting lists down, and by the end of this Parliament we will have fulfilled the pledge that we gave to the people at the general election. The difference between the Labour party and the Conservative party is that we keep our election promises rather than break them. However, we have also made it clear that reducing waiting lists is just the start. We want to modernise each and every aspect of NHS treatment and care, so that patients everywhere get the fast and convenient services that they want.

Dr. Nick Palmer: I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position. Those of us who have campaigned on health issues over the past couple of years have been impressed by the clear sense of priorities of many people both inside and outside the national health service. Before the election, the main worry was the enormous explosion in in-patient waiting lists, which was getting out of control and discrediting the health service. I also welcome the fact that the health service is now—

Madam Speaker: Order. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is Question Time. Would he move on rapidly and ask the question directly? It should relate to waiting times for brain scans.

Dr. Palmer: I want to ask the Secretary of State this question. Will the priority that he is giving to heart disease and cancer treatment improve waiting times and waiting lists in those areas, as that will reflect the priorities of ordinary people?

Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is right. There has always been a connection between reductions in waiting lists and waiting times. As we get waiting lists down, so waiting times will come down. We can now guarantee—the Opposition were never able to do this when they were in government—that patients will wait no longer than 18 months for treatment. During the past year, we have reduced the number of people waiting more than 12 months for treatment by a third. There is obviously a long way to go, but patients want fast and convenient care and they know that they will get that from the Labour Government.

Dr. Liam Fox: I welcome the Secretary of State to his post. These days it is nice to see Ministers who are willing to come along and defend their positions. What my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) says is true: this initiative is an example of distorted clinical priorities in the health service. The Secretary of State is new to the job. Does he accept that patients care not how many people are behind or in front of them in the list, but how long they and their families will have to wait for treatment? Will he abandon the waiting list initiative, which is reducing the NHS to a shambles, with extraordinarily distorted clinical priorities?

Mr. Milburn: No, I will not do that for two reasons. First, when politicians, whether in opposition or in government, make promises at general elections, they should keep them. We intend to keep our promise that, by the end of this Parliament, the number of people on waiting lists will be 100,000 lower than we inherited. Secondly, we are taking this initiative because it is the right thing to do. As waiting lists come down, so will

waiting times. That is happening already, and in the core priority areas of cancer and heart disease we are now setting in train action that will ensure that patients are seen in a timely fashion. That is what patients and staff in the national health service want.

Dr. Fox: Under this Government, getting on to the waiting list is an achievement in itself. An extra 190,000 patients have been waiting to get on to the waiting list since Labour came to power, and that does not take into account the fiddling of the figures that seems to take place daily.
The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Nursing and just about every medical and nursing body in the country say that the waiting list initiative distorts clinical priorities and keeps the sickest patients waiting longer than necessary, because minor cases are treated earlier in order to get the figures down to suit Ministers. Why does the Minister not realise that? Is it because this is about the Prime Minister's ego and not the running of the health service? The Secretary of State knows that this policy is flawed, that it is the wrong way to run the national health service and that it is bad for patients, but that it is the Prime Minister's second political prisoner.

Mr. Milburn: It is a bit rich for the Conservatives to give lectures about fiddling figures, given that they spent 18 years fiddling figures. They fiddled the employment figures not once, not twice, but more than 30 times. They tortured the statistics until they confessed.
If the hon. Gentleman had bothered to listen to what heart surgeons, heart specialists and the royal colleges had to say yesterday, he would have learned that they welcome the direction that we are now taking in the national health service to modernise and speed up all aspects of care.

Terminally Ill Patients

Ms Hazel Blears: What steps he is taking to ensure that appropriate care is available to terminally ill patients admitted to general hospitals. [92585]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): All terminally ill patients should receive appropriate and sensitive palliative care whether in hospitals or other settings. To support that, in June 1998 the Department of Health distributed throughout the national health service three documents on good practice in palliative care, produced by the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services. Copies are available in the Library, and one of which covers "Palliative Care in the Hospital Setting."

Ms Blears: I welcome my hon. Friend to her position on the Front Bench. In her public health role, she has one of the most important jobs in government. I look forward to working with her to tackle health inequalities in deprived communities such as mine, and I thank her for the reply to my question.
I understand that the Department is aware of the sad case of Mrs. Carol Green from Salford, who in March last year died in Hope hospital having been admitted as a terminally ill patient. Her husband, Mr. Green, was forced


to watch her in pain, agony and distress during her final hours. Mr. Green and I are pressing the Department to ensure that district general hospitals provide the same pain relief, nursing and supportive care as hospices. Often patients are admitted when they are already dying, and it is too late for them to go to a hospice. Those patients are entitled to the same dignity and care that they would have in a hospice, and I ask the Department to look into the matter seriously.

Yvette Cooper: I thank my hon. Friend for her kind remarks, and offer my sympathy to Mr. Green following the death of his wife. I am aware of the case, and I know that my hon. Friend has been pursuing it locally. I hope that it can be speedily resolved.
Everyone should have access to sensitive care, whatever the setting. Guidance on caring for people during the last days of their lives is now available in the national health service. In addition, strategies for high-quality palliative care should be part of local health improvement programmes. I am aware that a significant number of health authorities do not yet have such programmes and strategies for improving palliative care; they must have such programmes, so that realistic funding for palliative care is secured and the quality of services is maintained.

Mrs. Marion Roe: I congratulate the Minister on her promotion. Will she take this opportunity not only to recognise fully the work of the voluntary hospice movement and its tremendous contribution to care for the terminally ill, but to say whether she is aware that NHS Executive advice on service agreements with voluntary hospices is still not being followed in two thirds of cases? Will she tell us what action she is prepared to take to ensure that that is put right?

Yvette Cooper: I shall certainly look into the points that the hon. Lady has made. I take this opportunity to recognise the superb work of the voluntary sector. One of the things that the Government have done is to set up a cancer care action group, bringing together a range of voluntary organisations, the NHS and the Department of Health to consider issues relating to palliative care—particularly in the field of cancer—and to draw on the voluntary expertise throughout the country.

Health Action Zone

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: What discussions he has held with (a) the health authority and (b) health trusts in Camden and Islington concerning the operation of the health action zone. [92586]

(The Minister of State, Department of Health Mr. John Hutton): Ministers have not yet had meetings with local health authority or trust officials on the progress of the Camden and Islington health action zone. However, my ministerial colleagues and I are currently visiting all the newly established second-wave health action zones, including Camden and Islington. I am pleased to inform my hon. Friend that I shall be visiting Camden and Islington health action zone on 10 November. I hope very much that he will be able to join me.

Mr. Corbyn: I thank the Minister for his answer, and look forward to his visit on 10 November. He will be

aware that the reason for the declaration of the health action zone was the high infant mortality and low life expectancy in the district, and the high incidence of notifiable diseases. What resources does he expect to bring to bear to improve general practitioner services and, in particular, to make it possible to examine the serious link between child poverty and child ill health in the area? What consultation does he intend to undertake with community organisations and community groups representing those who are suffering because of a combination of poverty, poor housing conditions and ill health?

Mr. Hutton: Over the next three years, nearly £8 million will be spent on developing health action zone proposals in my hon. Friend's constituency and in others in Camden and Islington. I also reassure my hon. Friend that the principal focus of the HAZ will be on the development of initiatives relating to primary care, and that we shall involve the local community in every way possible. We shall focus particularly on teenage pregnancies and the plight of those in poverty, to whom my hon. Friend referred.
It is a characteristic of all health action zones that programmes developed locally are done so in full consultation with all local partners. We consider that to be a critical way of tackling some of the health inequalities—two words that the Conservatives always refused to use when they were in government. We are serious about tackling health inequalities. My hon. Friend's constituency includes some of the most deprived parts of the country; we look forward to working with him, and with others locally, to improve the situation and tackle the root causes of ill health.

Independent Health Care

Mr. David Hinchliffe: What steps he is taking to regulate the provision of health care by the independent sector. [92587]

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): I am determined to improve the current arrangements for regulating private health care. An effective regulatory system is essential to provide patients with the protection to which they are entitled. I shall set out my proposals on the way forward shortly, following the extensive consultation that we have undertaken and taking account of the helpful report from the Select Committee on Health earlier in the year.

Mr. Hinchliffe: I welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position and pay tribute to his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who did a first-class job for the past two years.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has mentioned the Select Committee report on regulation of independent medical care. The Committee as a whole was concerned at the extent to which the national health service in a number of ways subsidises the private health sector. It was especially concerned about the way in which repair work is undertaken in the NHS where things have gone wrong in the private sector, which happens quite frequently. Has my right hon. Friend any assessment of the costs to the NHS of such problems in the


private sector? Can he say what steps he will take to recoup such costs directly from the private hospitals concerned or the insurers who are involved with the patients?

Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend raises an extremely important issue. I join him in praising the work of my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for—

Mr. Simon Burns: Holborn and St. Pancras.

Mr. Milburn: Thank you. It is always nice to have a bit of co-operation from the hon. Gentleman. It makes a change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) did a sterling job in laying the foundations for a modernised health care system. I was very proud to serve with him and to follow in his footsteps.
Clearly, we need to look extremely carefully at the relationships between the private and public health care sectors. It is not just about regulation: we must ensure not only effective regulation, but that, where there are arrangements between the NHS and private sector, they are not to the detriment of the NHS.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: I join others in welcoming the Secretary of State to his new responsibilities. I invite him to mark his appointment by telling the House when he expects the Government to redeem their election pledge to make proposals for the reform of the finance of long-term care in the independent residential and nursing home sector.

Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind comments.
We have fulfilled our election pledge by establishing the royal commission on long-term care for the elderly. However, we are considering its conclusions. I will make an appropriate statement after I have considered them.

North-east London Health Economy

Mr. Mike Gapes: When he next plans to visit Redbridge to discuss the north-east London health economy. [92588]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): I intend to visit Redbridge on 18 November.

Mr. Gapes: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I am delighted that a Minister will visit Redbridge. I would welcome the opportunity at that time to show him the serious pressures and problems that NHS staff face in King George hospital, which was originally designed to take 50,000 admissions a year and is currently taking 90,000 a year, and where the accident and emergency department is under great pressure.
I welcome the additional resources that the Government have given to our local health service, but hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to see for himself the reasons why we need more help locally.

Mr. Denham: I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend's constituency. I am determined to ensure that his

constituents, like patients throughout the country, benefit in full from the modernisation of the NHS. There are important issues to be dealt with, which are the subject of proper public consultation. They include increased co-operation and better sharing of clinical skills in my hon. Friend's part of London. However, we are already backing that up with substantial resources—nearly £2 million extra—to modernise A and E services for his constituents, and the health authority has received more than £2.5 million of funding over and above the health authority basic allocation from the London fund. I am delighted to have the opportunity to see the NHS on the ground and to discuss how we take forward the modernisation of services in that part of London.

Mr. Simon Burns: When the Minister goes to Redbridge to discuss health in north-east London, will he bear in mind that—because of the previous Secretary of State's changing, or fine tuning, of the funding formula two years ago—north-east London has received about £1 million extra funding at the expense of north and mid-Essex? The consequence has been that, in the current year, mid-Essex has had a deficit of £2.4 million, three hospital wards are being closed, and waiting lists have soared. Will the Government re-examine the funding formula for north-east London and North Essex and restore that £1 million to north and mid-Essex?

Mr. Denham: The health service in Essex has received significant increases in resources, as has every part of the health service across the country. As we announced in November 1998, there is dissatisfaction with the allocations formula, not only in north and mid-Essex, but in other areas. We therefore announced a wide-ranging review of the allocations formula, and said that there will be a freeze on amendments to it until the review is completed. Consequently, in coming years, in each part of the United Kingdom, the health service will be able to plan with some certainty and security, to meet the needs of patients.

Mr. Philip Hammond: Over the summer, the Minister's attention will have been focused on Redbridge for another reason—the exposure of the scandal of waiting list manipulation at the King George hospital, and subsequently elsewhere in the country. Will the Minister admit that the Government's waiting list initiative has been an unmitigated disaster for the NHS; that there are still 18-month waiters in the system; and that the Government's very modest progress on their targets so far has been achieved only by a massive distortion of clinical priorities, the creation of a culture of manipulation and deceit in the NHS, a doubling of out-patient waiting lists and the absurdity of forcing the sickest patients to wait the longest?

Mr. Denham: No, I do not accept a word of that, because it is all wrong. We are absolutely determined that the public should have every confidence in the waiting list figures that we publish, and I support entirely the Redbridge health care trust in the tough and prompt action that it has taken against those responsible in that case. However, I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman has any evidence for saying that the waiting list figures that we published have been fiddled—they have not. Moreover, we are determined to ensure that the public have full confidence in them.
We shall deliver on our waiting list promise, and have already reduced waiting lists to 70,000 below the level that we inherited. When Conservative Members criticise that fact, they are criticising the fact that another 450,000 in-patients were treated last year. I have not yet heard Conservative Members say which of those 450,000 people should not have had that treatment.
Although the Government will fulfil our waiting list promise, in doing so we shall ensure that conditions that deserve high priority—such as cancer and coronary heart disease—are given proper priority. We have already established a two-week maximum waiting time for breast cancer referrals, and that maximum will be extended to other cancers. In due course, we shall introduce the national service framework on coronary heart disease, which will demonstrate very clearly the priority that we are giving to treating that condition.

Bowel Cancer

Mr. Peter L. Pike: What investment his Department is making in services to combat cancer of the bowel. [92589]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): We have invested £20 million in colorectal cancer  services to improve access to diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, £10 million is being made available to support the two-week waiting time standard for all patients urgently referred with suspected cancer. The £93 million in England from the new opportunities fund will buy additional and replacement equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of all cancers.

Mr. Pike: My hon. Friend will know that, in far too many cases, cancer of the bowel is detected far too late. What can we do to encourage earlier diagnosis of cancer of the bowel to ensure that action will be taken speedily? What action can we take to ensure that the survival rate is the same across the United Kingdom, so that there are not survival black spots in some parts of the country?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Screening can be effective in promoting the early diagnosis of other cancers. Pilot studies for colorectal screening were announced in March in order to see whether a national programme would be feasible or acceptable. My hon. Friend is also right that it is outrageous that people from low-income areas are more likely to die of cancer. That is unacceptable. The Government are prioritising cancer not just because it is one of the biggest killers in the country, but because it lies at the heart of deep-rooted inequalities in Britain.

Rev. Martin Smyth: In welcoming the steps taken to advance cancer care, I urge the Minister to ensure that more money is spent on drawing the attention of the public to the fact that they could take greater care in detecting things and by going to the doctor sooner. Is there collaboration in England—similar to that involving City, Belfast and Johns Hopkins hospitals—to bring centres of excellence together to combat this scourge?

Yvette Cooper: I am encouraged by the centre of excellence that the hon. Gentleman describes. The matter

is a huge priority for the Government. We are working with organisations across the country on a strategy that will look not simply at cure but at prevention and the action that individuals can take to improve their health. One of our most important acts in that regard is to ban tobacco advertising from this country.

Dr. Desmond Turner: I deeply welcome the sharper focus on cancer care and coronary disease, although there has been some press speculation—probably idle—that some of the extra resources will be at the expense of public health initiatives. Will the Minister assure the House that there will be no dilution of public health initiatives that are aimed at preventing those diseases?

Yvette Cooper: I can do that. In fact, the reverse is true: we are making cancer and heart disease a priority, although public health must be at the forefront of tackling those diseases. It is not simply about what happens in hospitals, but about what happens in every household in every street in this country.

Dr. Liam Fox: I welcome any increased targeting on cancer, although the task is a difficult one that cannot be achieved by gimmicks, soundbites or the sort of double accounting that we have seen from the Government recently which has been worthy of the Home Secretary himself. There is a difficulty with the cancer pledge that I would like the Minister to address. In gynaecology, it would be ridiculous to refer every woman with post-menopausal bleeding. Likewise, it would be impossible to refer everyone with altered bowel habits simply because they may have cancer. What level of clinical suspicion is required to meet the time pledge, and what guidelines have been issued to GPs throughout the country?

Yvette Cooper: We are working with GPs on the guidelines to ensure that referral takes place properly and according to appropriate clinical priorities, as it is a matter of clinical judgment for the doctors involved. It is a bit rich to be lectured on clinical priorities by a shadow spokesperson who believes that we should be encouraging more private insurance at the expense of the NHS and that we should be shunting people into private health care instead. I can think of no greater distortion of clinical priorities than rationing treatment according to how much people can afford to pay.

Organ Transplants

Mr. Tam Dalyell: What discussions he has had with the Scottish Executive on Government policy relating to organ transplants. [92590]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Gisela Stuart): Department of Health officials hold discussions with officials in the Scottish Executive Health Department on matters relating to organ transplants. All countries of the United Kingdom continue to co-operate on transplantation to ensure the effective provision of services including maximising the number of organs available, and that patients receive the best-matched available organs.

Mr. Dalyell: May I wish my hon. Friend well on her first appearance on the Front Bench? Is it not sad that


highly personal decisions on the donation of organs have to be made at the moment of maximum grief? That is not the right time to make them. In view of the change of heart by the British Medical Association, is there any change in the thinking of the Government on organ donation and on an amendment to the Human Tissue Act 1961?

Gisela Stuart: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. He is right to point out that decisions about organ transplantation have to be made at sensitive times. The current arrangements work on the basis of consent. It is a giving relationship based on a positive step. There have been suggestions that we should have an opt-out system so that decisions on organ donations were made without further discussion. Even countries that have such an opt-out have a system of consultation. We do not want to move away from that. A survey has suggested that 50 per cent. of the population are content with the current arrangements. More importantly, there is no evidence from European countries that have an opt-out that it would increase the number of organs available. The biggest hinderance to organ donations is the place where the death occurs, which often has to be in hospital.

Mr. John Wilkinson: I welcome the hon. Lady to her appointment. Will she address her fresh mind to Government policy on transplantation not just north of the border, but in the London area? Does she recognise the immense merits of Harefield hospital in my constituency, which has an international reputation second to none on the transplantation of hearts and lungs—sometimes both together? Will she ensure that that centre of excellence is built up, not reduced in scale or scope as seems to be the present plan?

Gisela Stuart: The current arrangements on transplantation and the availability of organs are still organised on a UK-wide basis, including Ireland. Every hospital in the country will have the best and most suited organ available, irrespective of funding. It is a question of matching. I am content with the systems that are in place.

Mr. Michael Connarty: I also welcome my hon. Friend and the other sisters who have been promoted to the Front Bench in the recent reshuffle. Is she aware that, when I wrote to my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Health requesting information on transplantation policy, particularly for people with Down's syndrome, I received a letter saying that, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, I should write to the Scottish Parliament about the matter? My request has been addressed again and I have had a reply saying that it will be dealt with properly. Does my hon. Friend accept that the health service often has to provide for people across borders, depending on where a speciality lies? I have had constituents who have had to come to London for particular operations. Will she assure the House that there will be seamless availability of health service provision for people throughout the United Kingdom, particularly for those who suffer from Down's syndrome or some other incapacity?

Gisela Stuart: It is right that health is now a devolved matter, so to some extent my hon. Friend was correctly advised to approach Members of the Scottish Parliament.

However, the legal arrangements for transplantation are unusual. While there is theoretically provision for different arrangements north of the border, we should be very concerned if there were not close discussions in preparation. I remind my hon. Friend that the United Kingdom Transplant Support Service Authority and the Unrelated Live Transplant Regulatory Authority work across the United Kingdom despite devolution.

Dental Services

Mr. Andrew George: What assessment he has made of the provision of dental services in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; and if he will make a statement. [92591]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): I understand from the health authority that, at 40 per cent., registrations in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are 7 per cent. lower than the England average. In recognition of the problem in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, the Government have approved 12 investing in dentistry bids and a personal dental service pilot to establish drop-in dental centres at various locations in the county. I am pleased to say that Cornwall will be at the forefront of modernising dental services. We are working on links with NHS Direct so that a phone call to it will put the patient directly in touch with a clinic that is able to accept them for treatment.

Mr. George: But phone and go where? Does the Minister accept that, with only four practices out of 88 in Cornwall accepting new adult NHS patients, there is a crisis in provision there? Does he also accept that it is time for proper action to address the real problem of access to NHS dentists rather than initiatives that simply seek to grab headlines?

Mr. Denham: I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the situation. The combined effect of the 12 investing in dentistry bids, when they have their full impact, should enable at least another 32,500 patients to register with an NHS dentist. The drop-in centres are expected to treat an additional 28,000 patients a year. That is not empty words for headlines but real action to give new confidence to the NHS dentistry service in Cornwall.

Vaccines (Bovine Material)

Mr. Norman Baker: If he will make a statement on the use of bovine materials in vaccines. [92592]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): No bovine material has ever been used as an active ingredient in vaccines. Some bovine material is used in the early stages of manufacture of some vaccines and as a medium for cell growth for some vaccines. Since 1993, all vaccines in use were manufactured without UK-sourced bovine material. In 1989, guidelines were issued by the Committee on the Safety of Medicines that advised manufacturing companies to switch to non-UK-sourced bovine material. No vaccines licensed since the guidelines were issued have contained UK-sourced bovine material. Vaccines already licensed in 1989 may have been using


UK-sourced bovine material in the manufacturing process, but by 1992 all manufacturers of existing vaccines had confirmed that they were sourcing bovine material from outside the UK.

Mr. Baker: I am grateful for that full answer, but in parliamentary answers to me earlier this year the Government admitted that stockpiles of vaccines containing bovine material that may have come from BSE-infected cows were not recalled when such material was banned from the food chain, and nothing was done to prevent their use between 1989 and 1992 by the previous Tory Government. How many people have been injected with such vaccines, and what steps have the Government taken to monitor any long-term health consequences?

Yvette Cooper: I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the answer on the number of people who were vaccinated between 1989 and 1992. Responsibility for advising the Government on the licensing of vaccines rests with the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. In 1989, the risk from UK-sourced bovine material was considered to be "remote" and theoretical. The CSM's view at the time was that the risk to public health through the spread of serious infectious diseases was greater than the risk associated with the use of the UK-sourced bovine material. Therefore, in 1989, the decision was taken on the basis of that advice that the vaccine programme should not be stopped immediately.

Mrs. Caroline Spelman: May I also welcome the Minister to the Front Bench? I also welcome the reassurances she has just given, which are good for public confidence in our immunisation programme. However, in view of the sharp fall in vaccinations for mumps, measles and rubella from the target figure of 95 to 87 per cent.—which places children at risk from a measles epidemic—will the Secretary of State lift the ban on single-dose vaccines and give parents back that choice?

Yvette Cooper: I thank the hon. Lady for her kind remarks. The single vaccines have not been withdrawn for reasons of cost or to deny parental choice, but on grounds of safety. The action is not a blanket ban and we have acted under the Medicines Act 1968, restricted by the Medicines Control Agency, on several grounds, including the principle that an unlicensed medicine should not be imported when a safe and effective licensed alternative is available. A growing body of evidence suggests that the single-dose mumps vaccine, which was being imported unlicensed, is not effective in protecting children. No evidence exists to demonstrate that the use of single vaccines is any safer than using MMR.

Medical Treatments (Prisons)

Mr. David Tredinnick: What discussions he has had with the Home Secretary concerning the range of complementary and alternative medical treatments available in Her Majesty's prisons and Her Majesty's young offenders institutions; what was decided; and if he will make a statement. [92593]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The priority to be accorded to such

treatments and the suitability of particular complementary and alternative treatments in prisons and other custodial institutions were considered by officials from the Prison Service and the Department of Health earlier this year. It was decided that a limited number of complementary therapies of potential benefit to prisoners and regimes should be provided, subject to the prison doctor's assessment of individual health needs and resource availability.

Mr. Tredinnick: Does the Minister not think that it is nonsense that the number of treatments available in the Prison Service has been reduced from 24 to six, when more and more treatments are being made available in the national health service? Does not he recognise that many complementary and alternative practitioners use more than one treatment? Does not he think that it is fundamentally crazy that homeopathy has been dropped from the list of treatments available in prisons, despite the fact that it has been used in the health service since that service's inception and that a new homeopathic hospital is coming on-stream in Glasgow?

Mr. Hutton: I am not sure that I want to echo the adjectives used by the hon. Gentleman. The decisions that have been taken are not crazy. They are sensible and well balanced, and take into account the obvious question of resources. We are trying to improve, across the range, the health care services available to prisoners. We are doing that, but we must take into account the priorities facing the prison population. We must also take into account the special mental health problems that arise in prisons, and improve mental health services to prisoners. We are continuing to make complementary treatments and therapies available to prisoners in the prison estate.

Chiropody

Mr. Eric Pickles: When he plans to bring forward regulations to govern the chiropody profession. [92594]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Gisela Stuart): Chiropody is currently regulated by the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act 1960. The Health Act 1999 provides for the making of an order to replace that Act and will establish a new health professions council. The chiropody profession will be among those to be registered by the new council.

Mr. Pickles: I am grateful for that reply. The Minister is in the first few weeks of her new job, but is she aware of the considerable concern in the profession due to the delay in consultation on that order? Will she take this opportunity to reflect on the anxiety about whether the regulations will protect the title of chiropody? Does she agree that any body looking into matters of fitness to practise should be composed mainly of members of the relevant professions?

Gisela Stuart: I am aware of those concerns and should like to point out to the hon. Gentleman that a consultation process is in place. It is proposed that the process will start this month or in November, and we hope that the legislation will be in place in summer 2001. The hon. Gentleman appears to feel that there is an


extraordinary urgency about this matter, so it is quite surprising that nothing has been done about it in the past 20 years.
I should also point out that the professions will be fully consulted. Under the new legislation, the health professions council will contain a majority element of professionals, and its membership will be broadly based. Above all, the professions will play a key role in formulating the proposals to be put forward.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: May I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend on her promotion, and welcome her to the Front Bench? Is she aware that the previous Government's health cuts mean that elderly people in my constituency are no longer eligible to receive free chiropody treatment, even when they are badly in need of it? Will she look at the problem again, to see whether there is any way to make such free treatment under the national health service a national right for elderly people who may be having problems?

Gisela Stuart: I thank my hon. Friend for her kind remarks. Of course, we will strengthen community services to make chiropody available to any age group, and especially to the elderly. Part of the NHS modernisation proposals is to put more funds into primary care. That will include the group referred to by my hon. Friend.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I congratulate the Minister on her appointment, and wish her success. When she reflects on chiropody services, is the Minister aware of the remarks attributed in The Health Service Journal to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), in which he denounced all who work in the private health care sector? I shall not repeat the word that he used, but it begins with "b" and ends in "s". Does the Minister share that assessment of people working in that sector, or does she agree with me and other Conservative Members that the hon. Gentleman's description is deeply offensive, both to private chiropodists and to people who are illegitimate children?

Gisela Stuart: I have some difficulty in sharing the hon. Gentleman's synthetic outrage. Fifty per cent. of the chiropody profession are in private practice and 50 per cent. work in the NHS. Both groups play a vital role in the provision of medical care.

Casualty Modernisation Schemes

Mr. Ronnie Campbell: How many casualty modernisation schemes are planned to improve security for staff. [92595]

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): Of the 171 schemes currently under way to modernise and expand accident and emergency departments, 55 are concerned specifically with improvements to security for staff and patients. The other 116 schemes are more general and will also benefit hospital staff.

Mr. Campbell: First, may I welcome my north-east colleague to his new post? His statement that he will save

the lives of cancer and heart patients should have been made from the beginning. I am beginning to warm to new Labour—[Interruption.] Before my colleagues get too excited, I am only saying warm.
I appreciate what my right hon. Friend plans to do about casualties. It is hypocritical of the Tories to say that they will do all that they claim while cutting taxes at the same time. I cannot understand how they mean to do both.

Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to level that charge against the Opposition. Their agenda is very different from ours. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) clearly laid out the Conservative agenda when he told a fringe meeting at his party conference that he was an "unreconstructed Thatcherite free marketeer" and a "great believer energetically" in markets. He told his audience:
The biggest problem that we have in the NHS is that it is not a proper market.
The hon. Gentleman went on to set out the real agenda behind the Conservative party's patients guarantee, saying:
what we are proposing could revolutionise private insurance in the way we revolutionised pensions in the 1980s.
We all remember pensions misselling. The patients guarantee was, the hon. Gentleman said, a Trojan horse, and so it is. The Tories would privatise the national health service; we will modernise it.

Accident and Emergency Unit Mergers

Mr. Peter Lilley: If he will commission a study of the effect of mergers of accident and emergency units on clinical outcomes. [92596]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): In considering whether to merge accident and emergency services we review a range of aspects of service quality, such as the availability of specialist doctors and nurses, access to investigation such as CT scanning and specialist back-up in hospitals. We must take other factors into account, such as location and accessibility of service. It is essential to ensure that we modernise all our A and E programmes, and, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said, we have a programme to modernise every A and E department that requires such investment.

Mr. Lilley: I thank the Minister for his answer, but think that it could have been put more tersely—"No." Can he confirm that although Labour opposed all hospital closures and promised before the general election to stop them, the Government plan no fewer than 80 closures across the country? The justification given for closing the accident and emergency unit at St. Albans, and for similar proposals elsewhere in Hertfordshire, is that it will improve the clinical outcome for patients. Before any more closures of accident and emergency departments, there should surely be a proper study to demonstrate that larger units do indeed result in improved clinical outcomes. Will the Minister carry out such a study?

Mr. Denham: In every case, we will make sure that the measures that we take are in the interests of delivering the best quality of patient care. It is not only what happens


in accident and emergency departments that is important: events there link with what happens to a patient before he or she arrives at that department—including the quality of paramedic care—and the quality of support available in a hospital once a patient has been admitted. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of a Conservative Government who cut 100,000 hospital beds, so he is the wrong person in the wrong position to raise this matter. The changes that we bring about will be in the best interests of patients.

Emergency Cases

Mrs. Janet Dean: How many emergency cases were treated by the NHS during the years to the end of March (a) 1999, (b) 1998 and (c) 1997; and if he will make a statement. [92597]

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Gisela Stuart): The numbers of emergency cases treated by the national health service are as follows: in 1998–99, 3,904,162; and in 1997–98, 3,783,350. The figure for 1996–97 is not included as that year was the first that data were collected for admissions rather than consultant episodes and the data are not as reliable.

Mrs. Dean: I would also add my congratulations to my hon. Friend on her appointment to the Front Bench. I wish her well and I thank her for her answer. We must all be concerned about the number of emergency admissions to the health service. Will my hon. Friend tell the House how the Government are tackling that increase?

Gisela Stuart: I thank my hon. Friend for her kind remarks.
It is the Government's long-term aim to provide alternatives to acute hospital admissions. While it is true to say that accident and emergency admissions have increased year on year, the increase of 3.2 per cent. in the last year represented a slower rate of increase than in previous years. The actions that we have taken include rapid response teams, which enable patients to stay in their homes while care packages are put together. More importantly, we should recognise that one of the Government's priorities is to invest in improved emergency services. To that end, we have invested about £150 million alone in the last year to improve facilities. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Queen's hospital in Burton has received about £1.6 million in the current year.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: In congratulating the Under-Secretary and her colleagues as well as my right hon. Friends on their new posts, I understand that the hon. Lady is to see representatives from the West Surrey health authority shortly. A recent casualty watch has found a series of patients waiting more than 20 hours at the Royal Surrey County hospital accident and emergency department. Last week, two parents told me that after their children had waited an hour and a half for head injuries to be examined at the department, they were told that it would be better to take them home and hope that all would be well. The situation

has never been so bad in west Surrey. If, to the Labour party, tackling inequalities means driving through an unacceptable deterioration in services in the home counties together with hits on social services, the situation is not containable. The hon. Lady is driving people into the private sector and delivering an unacceptable level of care in the NHS.

Gisela Stuart: I am afraid that I cannot accept the right hon. Lady's assertions. If she would like me to pick up on particular cases involving hospital and trolley waits, I will be happy to do so. In general, the Government have improved not only the amount of funding for accident and emergency provision but winter planning, with which I am involved at the moment, to ensure that over the winter hospital services are improved—that provision has been better planned and better organised than ever before.

Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Health Authority

Mr. Tom Brake: If he will make a statement on the financial position of the Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth health authority. [92600]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The health authority has a recurrent deficit of £500,000. However, at the end of June 1999, the authority was forecasting a surplus of £600,000 for the current financial year. It is in the process of producing a recovery plan designed to bring it into recurrent balance in the year 2000–2001.

Mr. Brake: I am grateful to the Minister for his response, but I am afraid that the financial position is worse than that he has outlined. The three local NHS trusts are all predicting large deficits. What reassurance can the hon. Gentleman give my constituents, many of whom are experiencing four to five hour waits at the accident and emergency unit at St. Helier hospital that in the coming winter months the level of service and care that they receive will improve rather than deteriorate?

Mr. Hutton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question as it allows me to point out to him and his constituents that a £3 million programme is under way at the St. Helier hospital to modernise its accident and emergency facilities. I hope that he will join me in welcoming that.
The hon. Gentleman expressed concerned about the financial implications that have arisen as a consequence of the trust's merger. As a direct consequence of that trust reconfiguration in his constituency, it is estimated that £1.5 million of additional resources will be transferred, as it were, from the back office to the front line to improve patient care for his constituents. I hope that he is also able to welcome that announcement. For his constituents and for everyone else in the country, the Government are committed to modernising the national health service to produce a first-class service that will provide timely and appropriate health care whenever a person needs it. I am sure that he would want to welcome all the initiatives that I have been able to outline.

Special European Council (Tampere)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): Together with my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary. I attended a special meeting of the European Council from 14 to 16 October in Tampere, Finland. The main purpose of the meeting was to agree the priorities for action by the European Union and member states in justice and home affairs.
We agreed action in three areas. First, on asylum and immigration we agreed: a common approach to the way in which member states deal with applications for asylum, to remove the incentive for asylum seekers to shop around, and to ensure that asylum seekers are dealt with in the first European Union member state that they enter; effective action against illegal immigration, especially against trafficking in people; and a commitment by all EU member states to treat third-country nationals who are legally resident in their countries fairly and without discrimination. All EU countries are now committed to providing equal access to education, health care and other benefits, as we do already for long-term residents in the United Kingdom. Action was also agreed in relation to the six countries of concern studied by the high-level working group, set up last year. Those countries were Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Morocco, Albania and Iraq. We are using a broad approach involving all available policy instruments to tackle poverty and other root causes of migration.
Secondly, on judicial co-operation, we agreed that there were important areas where court decisions in one jurisdiction should be recognised elsewhere in the EU. This is needed to provide legal redress for individuals and companies when their problems, in business or leisure, originate in another member state and to co-operate better in bringing criminals to justice.
The British proposal that the cornerstone of policy in this area should be mutual recognition of court decisions, rather than the harmonisation of laws, was adopted unanimously. The European Council agreed that there must be drastic simplification of the present, slow and laborious arrangements for giving effect in one member state to the decisions of a court in another member state.
The European Council also decided that practical steps should be taken—for example, agreeing on common procedures for making small claims across internal European borders, together with making better information available to the public—in order to improve the access of all member states' citizens to justice throughout the European Union.
Thirdly, the European Council decided on a series of measures on combating cross-border crime. At our suggestion, there is to be a new task force of European police chiefs working alongside Europol, to plan and organise joint police operations across Europe. There was also agreement on our proposal to set up a European police college. A new body will be established, consisting of national prosecutors, magistrates and police officers, to assist and support investigation of organised crime and the prosecution of those involved. The principle of mutual recognition that was agreed should apply to judicial decisions in criminal cases, particularly those required to secure evidence and seize assets.
Action will be taken in due course to replace extradition with a simplified system for convicted criminals. We will also develop a fast-track extradition process for those accused of a serious crime. In addition, we agreed on a new focus among member states on youth crime, crime prevention and the protection of the victims of crime.
A comprehensive list of the action agreed by the European Council is to be found in the Council's conclusions, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.
In addition to its main business, the Council discussed the situation in Pakistan, following the military takeover there. It also had a preliminary discussion of the prospects for EU enlargement, an issue that will be a major topic for the Helsinki European Council in December. It was unanimously agreed that our commitment to enlargement must proceed.
In the margins of the European Council, I made it clear to the Prime Minister of France and the President of the European Commission that France's failure to permit the sale of British beef was unacceptable, and that the French Government had to implement EU decisions.
The EU Scientific Steering Committee is due to complete its review of the French advisory committee's report before the end of this month. If there is no new scientific evidence, the President of the Commission has agreed with me that he will insist that France implements the earlier ruling, and will take legal action if the French Government fail to do so.
We will pursue every available avenue to ensure that British farmers can exercise their right under European law to sell beef throughout the European Union and, of course, it is only because of European law that we are able to do this with the backing of the law.
At the Tampere Council, we restated and safeguarded essential British national interests on asylum and immigration. We reached agreements with our European partners on law and order issues, which of their nature do not respect national boundaries, and on which international co-operation is vital. We restated the overwhelming scientific evidence on the safety of British beef and the fundamental importance of swift observance by the French Government of European Union law. In short, it was, I believe, a successful Council in which we engaged constructively with our European partners in support of British national interests.

Mr. William Hague: We welcome the progress made at Tampere on co-operation between EU member states in the fight against drug trafficking, organised crime, money laundering, fraud and theft. Clearly, progress was also made on improving co-operation on asylum procedures and the creation of a European police chiefs task force. Where such co-operation takes place between nation states within the European Union, we welcome it. The mutual recognition of court decisions agreed at Tampere obviously has merits and we await further details of that.
Is it not important to ensure that, with such co-operation, we do not give away the right of this country to make its own decisions? The Home Secretary tells us that we are not moving towards a single system of justice, but, these days, when the Home Secretary has been to visit, we all start counting the spoons. In the light of this, can the Government guarantee that none of the


measures to which they have signed up will undermine our own system of justice or lead to a corpus juris in Europe—something to which we should be implacably opposed?
The Prime Minister referred to the continuing ban on British beef in France. Can we ask him to try a new tactic to get France to lift the ban? Why does he not show his confidence in British beef by lifting his ban on beef on the bone here in Britain? What does he say to the French Prime Minister? "Please lift the ban on our beef? Mind you, I don't touch it myself if it has a bone attached to it." What a stupid position to be in.
We welcome the commitment to enlargement. Everyone acknowledges that this will require changes in the way in which Europe operates. The important question is what those changes will be. Is it not in the interests of Britain and of Europe to argue the case for a more flexible Europe of nation states co-operating together? Government committed to that vision would be pressing for treaty amendments at the next intergovernmental conference that would allow nations greater flexibility. Is that not necessary to make an enlarged Europe work? Is it not necessary to protect the great strength that nation states bring to Europe?
Is it not Britain's responsibility to stand firm for this vision of a flexible Europe? Is not the truth that, instead, our Prime Minister is going along with, and encouraging, a more centralised, more bureaucratic, more interfering Europe? Did we not see yesterday that agenda unfolding as his so-called wise men, including his own former Minister and current adviser Lord Simon of Highbury, published their report? It included a massive increase in qualified majority voting, the abolition of the national veto in key areas including even changes to existing treaties, a separate European defence capability, a written constitution for Europe, and substantial new powers to be taken from national Governments and given to the unelected Commission.
Is it not the right position for the Prime Minister of this country, in the interests of Britain and Europe as a whole, to put forward the alternative to those ideas rather than welcoming them and persisting with his fraudulent insistence that the advancement of any alternative proposals means withdrawal from the European Union? He would have told anyone arguing for the British rebate, for opt-outs from the single currency or for the social chapter that they wanted to withdraw from the European Union. Perhaps we should remind the Prime Minister that the only one of the two of us ever to have fought an election on a platform of withdrawal from Europe is him.
Does the Prime Minister recall that Romano Prodi was meant to concentrate on the heroic task of cleaning up the Commission? Now, he is spending his time saying that, for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire, we have the opportunity to unite Europe. Talk about delusions of grandeur—from hero to Nero in a few short months. Why is the Prime Minister so content to be carried along with the tide to a single European state? What the great majority of the British public want from Europe is very straightforward. They want co-operation with other European nations on issues such as fighting drugs and many of the other issues rightly discussed at Tampere, but what they do not want is for ever more rights and powers of this country to be taken away slice by slice with our own Prime Minister wielding the knife. That is why the party that stands for being in Europe,

not run by Europe, defeated his party at the European elections a few months ago. Is it not time that he listened to that majority? He is not listening to the British people, so it falls to us to speak with clarity and consistency, and to speak up for the people of Britain.

The Prime Minister: It is no wonder that Norman Tebbit said that he had never felt happier in the Conservative party than today. The Thatcherites have won, have they not? They have taken it over. Not the back-seat driver any more, she has kicked the right hon. Gentleman out of the front seat. Now, she is going to be driving that flat-back lorry as it goes around the country. The only chance that the right hon. Gentleman will get to have a spin is when his L-plates are on.
I shall come back to that rant in a moment. First of all, in so far as the right hon. Gentleman had any substantial points on Tampere, let me answer those points. Will the agreement undermine— [Interruption.] Calm down. Will the agreement undermine the justice system of Great Britain? No, of course it will not; it is a very sensible set of proposals. I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that he actually opposed all those proposals when we negotiated this at Amsterdam. He opposed the very things that we have now agreed at Tampere, but I thank him for his welcome.
In relation to enlargement, and the wise men's report, let me point out, as the right hon. Gentleman attacks the President of the Commission, that the President was talking about uniting Europe and about enlargement. He was saying how good it was that eastern Europe, which used to be divided from western Europe, is now part of the European family of nations again. I would have thought that Conservatives could welcome that.
The report itself is an advisory report to the President of the European Commission, not a statement of the European Council. As we enlarge the European Union, from 15 to 20, or to 25, we shall have to look at the ways in which we take decisions in the European Union to make it more streamlined.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"]— There is no hidden agenda. It is a sensible debate to have. The experts on qualified majority voting are the Conservatives in power. They agreed 42 different changes, allowing qualified majority voting. I do not criticise them for that. We could not even argue that the ban on British beef should be lifted were it not for qualified majority voting. We shall not agree to any lifting of the veto in areas such as tax, defence, or our border controls—again, something that we secured at Amsterdam, but I am perfectly prepared to look at it in other areas, if it is in the country's interest. That is a sensible position—not the sort of hysterical rant that we got from the right hon. Gentleman a moment or two ago.
As for the right hon. Gentleman's actual policy, there are two points. First, he is saying that he will renegotiate the terms of entry for Britain into the European Union, and will block—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—Oh, yes. He is saying that, unless he is allowed to choose which areas he agrees to—other than free trade, or the internal market—he will block all European Union change. That is his policy; it cannot have changed just in the past two weeks. If the rest of Europe says no, then he will have no option but to leave. That is why his policy puts us on a conveyor


belt to withdrawal. [Interruption.] Do not take my word for it. This is what the former Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), said. He said:
The Eurosceptics in my party have been given a free rein. They have taken advantage of that to try and force the Conservative party to take more extreme anti-European views.
The former Deputy Prime Minister—

Dr. Julian Lewis: Who is he?

The Prime Minister: Who is he? Well, some of us are not going to airbrush the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) out of history. He said that the Conservative party
is being taken down a road where the Eurosceptics have got a hidden agenda, which is beginning to emerge, called 'Britain Out'.
Chris Patten said:
The Conservative policy now appears to stop enlargement unless we get our own way on opt-outs from everything that moves. I just don't understand where we have got to.
The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), said:
The acid test of whether we go into the euro will, at the end of the day, be an economic test: are we being damaged by staying out?
He called the sceptics policy "politically crazy". Douglas Hurd said:
Judging from last week's speeches in Blackpool, Conservative policy in Europe is increasingly based on caricature, not on reality.
Malcolm Rifkind said that the Conservative policy is
a call which is little more than a euphemism for us to quit Europe.
The Conservatives do not agree with any of those remarks, so let me tell the House what they do agree with—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who is the new Conservative spokesman on education and employment shouts, but this is what he said previously:
Renegotiation should start from the premise that we will stay in the European Union if we can strike a deal that is in our interests and pull out if we cannot.
As someone once said, "game, set and match".
The truth of the matter is that the Leader of the Opposition has turned his party into a single-issue pressure group that is anti-Europe. He has turned his leadership over to the far-right Thatcherites. He might save his leadership and get some media backing, but he is playing a dangerous game of politics with the fundamental interests of Britain. The party that now represents mainstream sensible thinking on Britain in Europe is the Labour party.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: It is easy to agree to a great extent with the Prime Minister's sentiments—apart from the last one, with which some of us might take issue.
This European statement gives me my first opportunity to contribute from my new, lowly vantage point—my elders and betters are all behind me; I look no further than the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) when I say that. I beg your indulgence, Madam Speaker, in the hope that the Prime Minister and the House will take this moment to pay tribute to the consistent, coherent and principled

contribution made by my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), not least on matters European.

Mr. Eric Forth: No.

Mr. Kennedy: On European issues, no is the only word that the Conservatives have.
Does the Prime Minister agree that much of the detail of the summit, especially in respect of crime and judicial matters, deals with issues that know no borders and respect no frontiers? If ever there were a classic reason why Britain should be in Europe and should be influencing Europe, it is that we cannot pull up a theoretical drawbridge and make ourselves immune from what goes on around us elsewhere in the Community and beyond its boundaries.
The difference between the real world and the unreal world on the other side of the Gangway is that there are those of us across parties and in all parties—including the Conservative party—who recognise that we have to make Europe work for us as a country, as well as for the broader interests and issues affecting Europe as a whole. In the more detailed discussions at the summit, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary were trying to influence the agenda towards improvement, rather than isolation, which is not an answer to anything.
I have some specific questions about judicial matters. There is a genuine citizens' issue regarding Europol, its accountability and Europol members' immunity from prosecution. Does the Prime Minister believe that there is scope to press further to try to ensure that that state of affairs is in the interests of individual European citizens rather than simply in the interests of the members of that force?
Finally, I refer the Prime Minister to the accursed issue of the French attitude to British beef. Can he give us some idea of the scope and time scale involved in pushing the issue hard? Being good Europeans means that, when another member state—in this case, France—flagrantly disregards the jurisdiction of the European Union, we can be in a stronger position to prosecute our case. Let us do so sooner rather than later.

The Prime Minister: I welcome the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) to his new position and I agree entirely with his comments about his predecessor. As to his elders, at least the right hon. Gentleman gets on with them.
As for the summit, cross-border crime is an area where we need greater co-operation. We must deal also with illegal immigration and try to iron out some of the inconsistencies in asylum rules that cause havoc across the European Union. That task will become even more important as enlargement takes place. As the borders of the European Union are pushed further eastward, it will be very important to have proper controls in place.
Europol will remain subject to ordinary judicial rules and principles. Europol is primarily an intelligence-gathering operation, but it will be subject to strict safeguards to ensure that citizens' liberties are protected properly. We think that it is important that Europol, together with the new police chiefs' task force, draws up an agenda of the changes that can be made within the European Union to try to tackle organised crime.
As to beef and the time scales involved, I think that the Scientific Steering Committee of the European Union will meet on 28 October. We will expect to receive a European Commission statement straight after that meeting and we will obviously progress the matter through the courts as quickly as possible. We have made that quite clear. I have told the French Government that, if the Commission and the Scientific Steering Committee decide, as I believe that they will, that there is no fresh evidence that casts doubt on the safety of British beef—all the evidence submitted recently was available previously to the committee—I hope that the French Government will abide by the decision.

Mr. Tony Benn: Is the Prime Minister aware that the long-term question of our relations with Europe is a political matter and not something that should be viewed as simply meeting Treasury criteria? Is he aware also that the "patriotic alliance"—which gives the impression of being a shadow national Government—is being grossly inaccurate and deeply offensive in attempting to characterise those who take a different view as Conservative or extreme in their character? Many people, including me, who are good Europeans do not want to see the people of any European country—let alone those in Britain—denied the right to elect and remove those who make the laws and decide economic policy. European co-operation will not be durable unless it is refreshed continually through popular consent and support for those who govern Europe in the general elections of every country, including Britain.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

The Prime Minister: I accept entirely that people who hold the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) are perfectly sincere. I have read some of the comments made by both Conservative Members and the press and I believe that those who have joined the Britain in Europe campaign get as much abuse as those who oppose Britain's participation in Europe.
As for my right hon. Friend's comments—which enjoyed great support from the Conservative party, as he would have seen—he proposes that nobody should make laws other than those whom we elect directly and whom we can remove from office. Being a part of the European Union means pooling our sovereignty with that of other countries. Those who object in principle to any such pooling of sovereignty also object in principle to the European Union. We might as well be honest about it: that is the debate. Those who oppose this idea because they believe it to be fundamentally undemocratic—I do not happen to share their view—should state their argument openly. They should say what a large part of today's Conservative party wants: they want out of Europe. I am afraid that that follows logically from the position that my right hon. Friend has adopted from his perspective, and that many Conservatives adopt from theirs. That is a perfectly sensible debate to have, but I happen to be on the other side of it.

Mr. Andrew Rowe: The Prime Minister will know, I am sure, that, all over the country, people are pleased to think that the processing of asylum applications will be speeded up. However, is he aware that many of my constituents are increasingly

disturbed by the fact that, although we are spending much time and effort on new procedures to speed up asylum applications, law-abiding citizens are having to wait seven, eight or even nine months for a passport—if, that is, the passport has not been lost. This week, I have had the humiliation of having to write to a foreign embassy asking it to intervene because the passport of one of my constituents had been lost by our people, and only an intervention by the Turkish ambassador could allow that person to get back to Istanbul to see deprived and anxious relatives, who had suffered in the earthquake. That is no way to go into a negotiation with Europe, with disgraceful incompetence in our procedures.

The Prime Minister: We are reforming our procedures, precisely because we have a huge backlog of claims. I understand that the casework is now back to normal, but I accept that things have been very difficult for people. However, that does not detract from the fact that it is in our interests to ensure that there are common asylum procedures across Europe. As for our asylum procedures, and our ability to make our asylum system more efficient, the changes that we propose will achieve precisely that. In relation to the matter that the hon. Gentleman raised in connection with his constituents, we have been working extremely hard, and we believe that the casework is now back to normal—but we keep the situation under constant review.

Mr. Bill Rammell: I warmly welcome what the Prime Minister has said about our stance on the lifting of the French beef ban. Anyone who believes in the European Union also believes that everyone should abide by the rules. Clearly, the French are not doing that, so it is important that we are challenging the French Government. However, does my right hon. Friend accept that the very fact that we have a legal framework within the European Union, setting out rights and responsibilities, means that we have a method of legal redress against the French Government? If we had followed the advice of the Conservative party, which increasingly seems to suggest withdrawal from the EU, we would have no legal right of redress whatever.

The Prime Minister: It is true that it is only because we are part of the European Union that we can pursue legal redress. It is also true that opting out of everything, which is now the Conservative party's policy, would include opting out of aspects that were nothing to do with the issue. The shadow Foreign Secretary said that Community law should be concerned only with free markets and free trade. That would mean that, in respect of the environment, agriculture and a whole range of other things, countries could simply pick and choose, and do whatever they wanted. That would be used against us, to our detriment; that is what is so crazy about Conservative policy. As the European Union enlarges and more countries come in, it will be in our interests to ensure that a small country cannot block change that we want in the European Union—change that would be in our interests.

Mr. Ian Taylor: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was right to welcome the developments at Tampere, and to encourage the Prime Minister to be tougher with the French by using the Commission and the European Court of Justice in the


proper way, in Britain's national interests. He was also right to welcome the enlargement measures. However, will the Prime Minister acknowledge the fact that one consistent Conservative policy has always been that, within the European Union, to overcome the protectionist instincts of any one member country, we need qualified majority voting? That is the principle behind the Single European Act, and it will become more important as the EU enlarges.
Did the Prime Minister have time to discuss with his fellow leaders at Tampere the forthcoming world trade talks in Seattle? Again, there is evidence that, because decisions are not taken by qualified majority voting, it may be difficult to reach a common position for negotiating on behalf of European Union interests in those talks, at a time when the Americans are showing more and more protectionist instincts.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is right about qualified majority voting, which is why I do not criticise the Conservative Government for negotiating to have many matters decided by QMV. If they had not done so, a series of changes could never have been put through in Europe.
I also agree with the hon. Gentleman about the World Trade Organisation talks in Seattle. We take the forward end of the free trade position. There are varying degrees of enthusiasm for that in the European Union. It is important that Britain has a leadership position in the European Union, so that we can help to push the EU towards the most open policy that it can possibly have at Seattle. The hon. Gentleman is also right about protectionist sentiments in the United States. The worst thing that we could do from a European perspective would be to echo those sentiments rather than to confront them.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I was the leader of the Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Peru, and we were told that Peru produced more coca leaves and raw material for drugs than any other country in the world. President Fujimori and many others in a position to know, including the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, said to us that Peru was doing its best—"look, you have seen our gunboats on the Amazon and the dogs that smell every bit of luggage"—but, as long as the west has anonymous, numbered bank accounts, drugs operators will get away with it. What can be done about anonymous, numbered, drugs accounts or the suspicion that such accounts exist? It is not easy.

The Prime Minister: That is a good point. It is precisely for that reason that, at Tampere, we discussed the problem of money laundering. We agreed to draw up a list of action to take against secrecy and illegality that make it difficult to trace where much of the drug money goes.
I should point out to my hon. Friend that, as a result of Europol intelligence gathering and the co-operation that we have now established between police forces across the European Union, we have a better chance of taking action in those areas. However, it would be foolish to pretend that we have anything other than a long way to go.

Mr. Michael Howard: The presidency conclusions refer to a new agreement to give

residents of European Union member states, as well as their citizens, the right to move to, and work in, any other member state. How is that new right consistent with keeping control of our own borders?

The Prime Minister: That is not correct. Residents will get the same rights as they do in the member state: their rights will not be pushed beyond that, so we will be able protect our borders. I should also point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, under the Amsterdam agreement, we still have an exclusive right to protect our own borders. Whatever issues are raised in the legislation that is agreed, we will be able to protect our own borders.

Miss Julie Kirkbride: That is an opt-out.

The Prime Minister: That is absolutely right. As a result, even were the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) right, that would not affect our border controls, because we would still have the right to protect the integrity of our borders.

Mr. Howard: I am referring to what the presidency conclusions say.

The Prime Minister: No, they do not say that. They refer to residents having the same rights as in the member state. That does not mean that they have the freedom that the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Stuart Bell: May I build on the drawbridge analogy made by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy)? Some of us do not believe that we should construct a new Hadrian's wall across the English channel. In his discussions on the margins, did my right hon. Friend tell his colleagues in the European Council that 57 per cent. of our trade is with the European Union, that 3.5 million jobs in this country, including many on Teesside, are because of our participation in the European Union, that the Government have no intention of renegotiating the treaties or withdrawing from the EU, and that they have majority support in the House and in the country?

The Prime Minister: That is right, and that is why it is important for Britain not just to remain in the European Union, but to be positively engaged in Europe. Some 3.5 million jobs are dependent on our membership of the EU, 800,000 jobs are as a result of inward investment, and 30 per cent. of such investment in European Union countries comes to Britain. Every day, we put and sell into the European Union £320 million worth of goods and services. That is why it is important for Britain to remain part of the European Union. More than that, however, all the decisions that are made in Europe affect our own ability to operate these rules successfully. If we end up without influence in Europe, or sidelined in Europe, or marginalised in Europe, we end up being unable to defend this country's proper national interests.

Mr. John Butterfill: I am sure that we would all agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is entirely desirable for us to have a system whereby the law can be enforced across the Community, and we can


work together to prevent drug smuggling, the dissemination of pornography and other awful things; but can the right hon. Gentleman explain how the system of common judicial authority will work, particularly in the absence of a common system of law? For example, what is an offence in Greece may not be an offence in this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman envisage circumstances in which a Greek judge could require the arrest of a British citizen, and require that citizen to face trial in Greece, for something that would not constitute an offence here?

The Prime Minister: No. The proposal is in respect of serious crimes that are recognised across Europe. The purpose is to ensure that judgments can be enforced quickly, without there being, as there are now, great delays and problems in the courts. It is a perfectly sensible idea.

Mr. Tom Clarke: Many will welcome the discussion that the Prime Minister said had taken place about the serious situation in Pakistan. Will he give us some more information about that discussion? Will he also confirm that his Government, like the rest of the Commonwealth and the vast majority of the international community, will do everything possible to ensure that that country returns to democracy as speedily possible?

The Prime Minister: We will do all that we can—independently, through the Commonwealth and through the European Union—to try to ensure a return to stability and democracy in Pakistan. The discussion around the table of the European Union showed total unanimity on that point.

Sir Michael Spicer: Will the Prime Minister veto any attempt to introduce corpus juris?

The Prime Minister: As far as I am aware, no one has suggested that we have a corpus juris, and I have made it absolutely clear that we do not want a corpus juris across the whole of Europe. There is not even a proposal for that. We will always oppose anything that we believe to be contrary to this country's national interest, and trying to introduce one legal system across Europe would be. [Interruption.] I have already said that we would oppose any such attempt; what is more, no such attempt has ever been made. Why do these people raise these scare stories? They do it because they are so obsessed with being anti-Europe that they allow their dogma to blind them to the proper interest of this country, which is to be in Europe—and not just to be in Europe, but to be constructive, to engage and to lead in Europe, rather than being at the margins of Europe, which is where we found Britain two years ago.

Mr. Neil Gerrard: Could a common approach on asylum mean that, in the future, applicants arriving in this country via another EU country will have no rights in the United Kingdom under the United Nations convention on refugees, even when courts in this country have taken a different view and rejected the view taken by the country from which the applicants have come? If the Prime Minister regards that as undesirable, does he agree that we need common approaches not just on

procedures but on standards, and that we must avoid establishing common standards across Europe by sinking to the level of the lowest common denominators?

The Prime Minister: We are trying to achieve proper standards, but it is important for countries to protect their own boundaries, and to protect themselves against illegal immigration—and, indeed, unlawful asylum. What is required is a balance. We want to establish proper standards in regard to the way in which people are treated and received, but we do not favour harmonisation. What we favour is the adoption of some common procedures, and the introduction of proper minimum standards; but, as a result of what we negotiated at Amsterdam, we retain integrity over our own borders.

Mr. William Thompson: I welcome the Prime Minister's initiative to try to get France to take in British beef, but does he recognise that its refusal to do so is strictly against the spirit of the European Common Market? Furthermore, such action turns people away from wanting to be closer to Europe.
When the Prime Minister raised France's refusal to accept not only beef into France, but lorry transit through the country, did he also raise the severe allegation that France is subsidising its pig farmers behind the back door and is giving other subsidies to its farmers?
Why have we to wait for another meeting of the Scientific Committee before France takes in British beef? If it can get away with that, why cannot another country raise another objection, which would mean that we would have to wait further?

The Prime Minister: The only proper recourse is through the law. The hon. Gentleman has said that the French action is against the spirit of the law. It is against the letter of the law. That is why we are taking the action that we are taking. As I said earlier, it is only because we are part of the European Union that we have any power to take action against the French.
In respect of transit, as a result of the temporary agreement that we have secured with the French, transit is now allowed, so that obstacle has been cleared, but that does not alter the fact that we still do not have clearance of British beef in Europe. We will carry on fighting the case until we win it.

Mr. Denzil Davies: In view of the Prime Minister's fairly recent answer on that pompously named project the corpus juris, I hesitate to ask another question, but will he please tell me whether, during the deliberations on crime and justice, the corpus juris was discussed at all and whether the recommendation by those who wrote the project that there should be a European public prosecutor was discussed?

The Prime Minister: No is the short answer on corpus juris. There are people who talk about having a European public prosecutor. That is essentially to root out fraud in the European Union, but we have not agreed to that and there is no active proposal on it.

Sir Peter Tapsell: When the Prime Minister was at the European Council, did anyone draw to his attention the fact that, since he told the House


last summer that he was planning to sell more than half Britain's gold reserves because so many other countries were planning to do the same thing, 15 European central banks, supported by the United States Treasury and the Bank of Japan, have pledged not to sell any gold for the next five years or longer, with the effect that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sold the first two tranches of British gold at an all-time low price at the end of a long bear market, involving the British taxpayer in heavy losses?
As Germany holds 3,400 tonnes of gold and has said that it will not sell any of it, will the Prime Minister now abandon his Government's plan to reduce Britain's gold reserves to less than one tenth of that amount?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is back to the old gold conspiracy again. We took the decision for sensible reasons. As for selling Britain's reserves, the one party that I will not take lessons from in the matter is the party that gave us the exchange rate mechanism debacle, where we lost more reserves in one day than this country has ever known.

Mr. Mike Gapes: It was reported in the press that, during a break in the proceedings at Tampere, some of the Heads of State and Government visited the Lenin museum in Tampere. Is the Prime Minister aware that that museum contains one of the few surviving documents—the treaty of Brest Litovsk—that was signed by Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky? Can he think of any three Conservative politicians who will be able to sign any document jointly?

The Prime Minister: No is the answer to that. I should also say that I was not one of those who visited the Lenin museum.

Madam Speaker: On that note, we shall move on to the next statement.

Paddington Rail Accident

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions y>(Mr. John Prescott): Madam Speaker, I wish, with permission, to make a statement about the horrific railway accident that happened at Ladbroke Grove junction on the approach to Paddington station on 5 October, when, at 8.11 am, the Great Western train from Cheltenham collided with the Thames train leaving Paddington. The House will be aware that, last week, my noble Friend the Minister for Transport made a statement in another place.
I am sure that the House will wish to join me in expressing deepest sympathy to the families and friends of those who lost their lives and hoping for the fullest possible recovery of those who were injured.
Immediately, we asked how such an accident could happen and how we could prevent such a thing from ever happening again. The latest casualty figures are 30 fatalities—including both drivers—and 245 injured. It was the worst rail accident in Britain since the Clapham Junction accident in 1988, when 35 people died.
Once again, the vigour, courage and professionalism demonstrated by our emergency services—fire, police, medical and health and safety staff—were outstanding. The emergency services' reaction was the product of constant training and planning, enabling them to perform in a manner of which I know that the whole nation wants to express its appreciation.
A striking feature of the appalling event was the remarkable reaction of ordinary people who were nearby at the time. Railway workers, staff from the local supermarket, others working nearby and, of course, survivors of the collision rushed to help those in distress without regard to their own safety. In the midst of horror, their selfless behaviour was a testament to human courage and willingness to reach out to others during a crisis. I am sure that the House will wish to join me in paying tribute to them all.
In addition to investigations by Railtrack and the railway inspectorate, there is to be a full public inquiry into the Paddington crash, under the chairmanship of Lord Cullen. I am pleased that Lord Cullen has agreed to take on the task and begun his work so promptly, visiting the site on the day of his appointment. He will, of course, soon have the benefit of the Southall inquiry, to which we attach the highest importance.
Lord Cullen will be examining the causes of the tragic accident, and also the wider issue of the overall safety regime in the railway industry. He will, inevitably, take some time to complete his work, but the Government will do all that we can to remove any obstacles to progress and ensure that we avoid the type of delay that the Southall inquiry experienced.
On Friday, 8 October, Her Majesty's chief inspector of railways issued interim findings on the causes of the crash. Subject to final confirmation, we now know that the Thames train passed a red signal before travelling a further 700 m into the path of the Great Western train. The automatic warning system on board would have applied the brakes if it had not been cancelled by the driver.
The chief inspector of railways has made it clear that, whatever the immediate causes of the tragedy, they should be considered as symptoms of a more general problem in the organisation of an effective railway safety regime.
I am determined to ensure that the industry takes firm and urgent action to reduce greatly the number of signals passed at danger—so-called SPADs. There has been considerable concern about SPAD incidents. Although the number of such incidents had been falling—from almost 1,000 in 1991, to just under 600 in 1997—last year it increased to 643. Consequently, last month, the railway inspectorate published a report detailing actions companies were required to take to strengthen safety systems. The chief inspector has my full support in that.
On 7 October, the railway inspectorate wrote to the train operating companies, instructing them to re-brief all drivers on the location of suspect signals and ways of avoiding passing signals at danger, and to review their driver training and arrangements for monitoring performance.
On 8 October, the inspectorate issued three enforcement notices. The first prohibits the use of signal SN109—the signal passed at danger by the Thames train—until Railtrack takes effective action to prevent further trains from passing it at danger. The second requires Railtrack to introduce by 6 November additional controls at 21 other signals passed at danger more than seven times in the past eight years. The third requires Railtrack by the same date to produce plans to reduce the risk at all other signals with a recent history of being passed at danger.
Meanwhile, I have asked for a weekly report to be sent to me on the number of SPADs. The chief inspector of railways has reported to me that, in the seven days after the accident, there were 16 SPAD incidents on the network. That is consistent with the average weekly numbers for October over the past three years. I have asked the railway inspectorate to produce a monthly analysis of SPADs which will be placed in the Library of the House.
The concern about SPADs has been increased by last night's incident at Lewes, where a Hastings passenger train collided with an empty train. There were 11 passengers plus driver and guard on the Hastings train, and all were safely evacuated. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Railtrack promptly informed the Health and Safety Executive, and an inspector from the railway inspectorate arrived on the scene.
The initial report from the HSE indicates that the train left Lewes station against a red stop light, and although the signaller at Lewes put out an emergency general stop call via the cab secure radio network, he was unable to prevent a collision. The likeliest explanation is that a number of errors by the platform staff at Lewes and the train crew combined resulted in a signal being passed at danger. The railway industry intends to carry out an internal inquiry. Meanwhile, the HSE is continuing to investigate, and we await its conclusions.
These incidents have led to a lot of discussion about train protection systems. Indeed, the inspectors consider that the Paddington accident would have been prevented had the train protection and warning system been installed. In 1989, the Hidden inquiry into the Clapham crash recommended the network-wide fitment of automatic train protection, although no workable system

was available in Britain at that time. No decision to implement this recommendation was taken, except on a pilot basis.
When this Government came to office, the Health and Safety Commission—aware of my close interest in the area—expressed concern that the industry was not making sufficient progress on either of the two key rail safety issues of the day: namely, the development of train protection systems and the withdrawal of mark 1 slam-door rolling stock.
We made it clear to the HSC in January 1998 that it should bring forward whatever regulations it considered necessary to improve safety on the railways and to reduce the incidence of signals passed at danger. Those regulations—signed by me on 30 July—will introduce train protection across the network and will bring forward by two years the elimination of mark 1 rolling stock.
The regulations require the early introduction of the TPWS and the continued use of ATP where it is already operational. The regulations do not preclude the introduction of further ATP, especially on our high-speed rail network. In fact, ATP is already operational on the Great Western line, the Chiltern line and the Heathrow express. It is being introduced on the channel tunnel rail link and the west coast main line, together with the east coast main line and the midland main line when they are upgraded. There is a balance of systems on our railway network.
There has been much discussion in the media and elsewhere about different types of train protection systems, and a great deal of misinformed opinion and differing technical advice has added to the confusion. I want to identify the safest and most appropriate options for use on our railways. I have therefore asked Sir David Davies, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, to assess and report back to me on the effectiveness, practicability and cost of train protection systems, and also on how best to reduce the present number of SPADs.
The Paddington incident has of course given rise to a large number of other questions not related to signals being passed at danger. They include the safety of the rolling stock and emergency equipment in case of fire; the behaviour of automatic central door locking; the type of diesel fuel; and the design of the track configuration and signalling.
We would all like instant answers on those issues. They will be examined thoroughly and properly in the investigations into the crash. I trust that the House agrees that it would be wrong to leap hastily to conclusions. Of course, should right hon. and hon. Members wish to raise any specific points, I shall ensure that they are drawn to the attention of those conducting the investigations and the public inquiry.
Concerns have been expressed since privatisation about fragmentation leading to a blame culture. Particular concern has been expressed about the wide range of responsibilities that reside in Railtrack's safety and standards directorate.
Last year, at my request and in line with a recommendation of the Transport Sub-Committee, the HSC began a review of the issue. Its interim report reached my office on the day of the Paddington crash. The report raises serious concerns about the rail industry, largely relating to priorities and decisions on safety standards, approval of the operators' safety cases,


safety audit, incident investigation and the adequacy of strategic research. It states that those issues should be explored further.
As a consequence I acted immediately, and at my request the Health and Safety Commission has appointed a specialist team to investigate those concerns and advise on any action required. I am glad to say that Railtrack has publicly welcomed that initiative.
I am minded to transfer the main functions of Railtrack's safety and standards directorate out of Railtrack, but where those functions are best located requires careful consideration. The answer must be one that ensures greater coherence on safety and does not, through disrupting safety management, result in an increase in risk.
The chief inspector of railways is keeping me informed of the progress of his investigations into the Paddington crash. He hopes to have sufficient additional information from the various tests and examinations now under way to be able to make a second interim report shortly.
I asked for an early report on action undertaken by Railtrack to improve safety on the approach to Paddington station, both in the short and longer terms. Although the emergency services have completed their work and the track has been cleared, Railtrack will reopen Paddington station only when the railway inspectorate is satisfied that it is safe.
There will be some restrictions on services, in particular at peak times, notably because of the closure of the approach to signal SN109. The actions that I have taken since the Paddington crash have been designed to enable the fullest possible investigation of the causes of this appalling accident and the best ways of preventing it from happening again. They should ensure that the decisions that need to be taken will be properly informed, thoroughly considered and as prompt as possible. In the meantime, whenever it becomes clear that a measure needs to be taken, we shall take it. Neither shall we hesitate to introduce legislation to the House, should that be required.
I have summoned the managing directors of all the passenger and freight operators, the shadow Strategic Railway Authority, the Rail Regulator, Railtrack and the general secretaries of the rail unions to a meeting next Monday to thrash out any immediate and additional steps that can be taken to improve safety. In particular, we shall discuss the HSE reports on SPADs and Railtrack's safety and standards directorate.
The Ladbroke Grove junction rail crash touched the heart of the entire nation. It must be a watershed for railway safety. We must make it so. We must emphasise to everyone concerned that safety comes first, second and third on Britain's railways.
The lasting legacy and the outcome of all the urgent actions now in progress must surely be a more open, more responsive, more rigorous culture of safety across the rail industry. We owe the victims and their loved ones nothing less. I am sure that the House agrees.

Mr. John Redwood: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. On behalf of the Opposition, I send my deepest sympathy to all the

relatives of those who died near Paddington. The House is united in a feeling of shock and grief and we all send our best wishes for a full recovery to those who were injured. We shall all find it difficult to put behind us some of the scenes that we saw, particularly those of us, including me, who represent constituencies along that ill-fated railway line. We are all united in thanking the emergency services for all that they did after the crash to take care of those suffering.
Safety is above party. We all want safer railways. From the moment of the crash, the Opposition have stressed two points. First, we must have a full and speedy inquiry into both Southall and Paddington, and we welcome the news on that. Will the Secretary of State give us some firmer idea of the timetable that he has in mind? It is dangerous to leap to conclusions before knowing the full causes of the crashes, but we wish to press on with the issue because of the fear felt by the travelling public. Secondly, the Opposition will support any sensible measures that can make such dreadful crashes less likely in the future.
It is my unwelcome task today to ask some of the questions that the nation wants answered—that is the role of the Opposition—but I do so with a heavy heart. Many people have been shocked to learn of the number of red signals that have been ignored. When did the Secretary of State first become aware that the number of signals passed at danger has been increasing? He has demanded a weekly report of red signals passed, so is he telling us that he can do something as Secretary of State to ensure that it does not happen in the future? That would be most welcome. What action could he take following yesterday's collision, for example?
We all want swifter progress with the Paddington inquiry than took place with the Southall inquiry. Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition wish to co-operate with any reasonable change that may be necessary to allow public inquiries to proceed in parallel with other legal processes? We feel that that is most important.
Will the Secretary of State publish all the evidence and advice that has persuaded him to strip Railtrack of its safety responsibilities before seeing the inquiry findings? For example, does he intend that the same staff currently doing the job should perform the duties in a new body, or should they be dismissed and new people found and trained? Will the instructions to the new body be the same as the instructions to Railtrack, or does he now think those instructions were inadequate and part of the problem? Why does he wish to give Railtrack responsibility for a significant part of the London underground when he does not think that it can be trusted with safety responsibilities?
We wish to know what the Secretary of State has decided about the remit of the Southall inquiry. Will he meet the legal representatives of the families caught up in that tragedy, as the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow transport Minister and I did this morning, to ensure that their concerns about the scope of the inquiry are met? They are deeply felt concerns, and we were deeply moved by the requirements that their legal representatives put to us today.
Is it true that the HSE has said that Paddington is unsafe and that the station definitely cannot reopen tomorrow? The confusion surrounding the reopening of Paddington is doing nothing for the feelings of those affected by the tragedy or for the confidence of the travelling public.


They all deserve better. I hope that the Secretary of State will return to the House soon with a plan of action, based on inquiry findings, for better technology and better train driving, so that travellers can be assured that he and the industry have done everything they can to learn from this series of tragedies. He will find the Opposition very willing to help.

Mr. Prescott: I am grateful for the remarks of support for the organisations involved in that terrible tragedy. We are united in wanting to improve safety, and I readily accept that questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman were not raised in a critical tone, but as a proper function of the Opposition in such situations. The House wishes to ensure that we have the best and safest railways, but I have made it clear from the beginning that I have avoided making political points, although it would be easy to do so. They do not help in such situations. People want us to get on with the job, because they are concerned that the railways are not as safe as they should be. They want the Government and the House to work together to improve matters, and that is our intention.
I met some of the relatives of victims of the Southall crash and discussed their concerns. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, I do not wish that inquiry to be delayed or held up while the Cullen inquiry takes place. It is important to get the conclusions of the investigation of the Southall crash before us as quickly as we can. Those conclusions will be relevant to consideration of the automatic train protection system and will have much to teach us about what went wrong that day. That is the purpose of inquiries. Indeed, I have asked Sir David Davies to make his engineering expertise on automatic train protection systems available to the inquiry. It is important that the Southall inquiry should not be delayed; I disagree with the lawyers who argue that it should be delayed until the Cullen inquiry starts. However, that is a difference of opinion. I think that the House would want that report to be concluded. It has been too long in preparation: people want to hear its conclusions, and they want to do so now.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asked when I knew about the increase in SPAD incidents. Almost my first action, in the first month after I took office, was to call for a report on rail safety. Three or four months later, I called in the Health and Safety Executive to discuss precisely how we were to end the delay in the introduction of an automatic train protection system. The advice that I was given was that something like 70 or 80 per cent. of such incidents could be avoided. Naturally, I told the Health and Safety Executive, "Get on with providing the system—bring me the regulations." If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the dates of the relevant decisions in this matter, he will see that I acted promptly, within weeks of coming into office.
The reason why I acted so quickly is simple: I have always been concerned with safety, and have felt that not enough was being done in that regard. That attitude characterised my actions in my early days as Secretary of State with responsibility for rail safety.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what actions we have taken since the inquiries were instituted. Of course we will act on the inquiries' recommendations. The Southall inquiry is a very important matter for us. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the inquiries are crucial in allowing us to learn the truth. We must not try

to guess what happened, and then act on emotion. The purpose of public inquiries is to allow reasoned consideration and a thorough examination of what needs to be done.
However, that is not to say that we can do nothing. Indeed, the country would not thank us if we were to say that we should do nothing while awaiting the inquiries' outcome. That is why I have called representatives from across the industry to a meeting on Monday, and why I have made it clear, through the Health and Safety Executive, that there is more that we can do.
I am not convinced that we cannot reduce the number of SPAD incidents, and I believe that more could be done about driver training. More responsibility should be borne by the industry and those who govern it, and there is more that they can do. That is what the public feel, and what I feel, and I intend to make that absolutely clear at the meeting on Monday. I believe that, by working together, we can improve matters. I hope that we can achieve that on Monday.
Everyone agrees that the Southall inquiry should report very quickly. I hope that it will be ready in December, and that we will be able to judge some recommendations then. That is relevant to my previous point: I believe that Sir David Davies can give us some good advice on the technical information that is available. There is a lot of confusion about such matters. Press reports maintain that people are not sure about automatic train protection, but I was asked—as I think were the previous Government—to adopt a system that was not proven to work 100 per cent. of the time. If we are to order safety systems, it is our responsibility to ensure that they work properly and well.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned transferring the work of the safety and standards directorate, but the conclusions of the report from the Health and Safety Executive were clear. He knows that that report has been published, so he has had access to the evidence that I received. The report suggested that there should be further discussions on train and station operators' safety cases being accepted directly by the HSE. It also suggested the transfer of the oversight of railway standards development to an existing appropriate organisation such as the British Standards Institution, which is an independent body. Other suggestions included the relocation of some safety audit functions, and the development of new mechanisms for strategic research to achieve better incident investigations.
Those are serious charges to be made against a body with responsibility for safety such as the safety and standards directorate. Nevertheless, I have told the Health and Safety Executive to send in an independent body and find out what it has to say about the criticisms. We will report back at the appropriate time and make a proper judgment. I think that that is the proper way to proceed. I await the report, and all the measures that are taken will be presented to the House. That is evidence of our desire to achieve greater safety on the railway system.

Mr. Martin Salter: Will my right hon. Friend pass on the appreciation of the people of Reading for the many messages of support and condolence that they received following the awful news of the Paddington train disaster, not least the messages from him, the Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that my constituents are right to feel angry that such a disaster—I refuse to call it an accident—occurred so short a time after Southall? Does he agree that Railtrack does not have the confidence of the travelling public and that that problem has been compounded by what has occurred in Lewes? Does he agree that the shambles of the reopening of Paddington has compounded matters further, as have revelations that drivers' warnings about lack of visibility regarding signal 109 were ignored, and that drivers' warnings that the infrastructure for the Heathrow express was causing confusion and blocking sight lines were also ignored?
Will my right hon. Friend consider implementing one more recommendation, made by the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs in March last year? The Committee's report said:
The Government would be well advised to consider whether it could better obtain its strategic objectives by taking an equity share in Railtrack.
Would it not be of some comfort to the travelling public if they knew that someone on the board of Railtrack had wide responsibility for community safety rather than just a legal responsibility to a group of shareholders?

Mr. Prescott: I will certainly pass on my hon. Friend's remarks about the gratitude felt by many of his constituents. I understand the anger expressed by people in Reading and in other areas. I was pleased to meet hon. Members last week who told me of their concerns.
We must be careful not to jump to conclusions. My hon. Friend has apparently already concluded that the Lewes incident was due to Railtrack, but I am not sure that he can so readily jump to that conclusion. That is the whole purpose of inquiries. The inspectors have already told me that that incident possibly involved a driver passing a red light. I do not want to blame anyone, but we should not jump to conclusions.
I understand why my hon. Friend feels as he does, given all the other matters that he mentioned. However, I must be guided by proper investigation and inquiry that provides a thorough examination of the facts before I can come to conclusions about action needed to improve safety. That is what inquiries are for, and they have played a tremendous role in improving safety in Britain. I am quite a fan of inquiries; they have done an excellent job.
My hon. Friend's point about buying an equity share in Railtrack is interesting. In fact, the Government hold some shares in Railtrack for various reasons, but it amounts only to a small part of the company. I believe that that is not the way in which to control safety. We need properly to apportion the responsibility as between the companies that must implement safety measures and the public authorities that have the duty to interpret and impose safety standards on the industry. The balance of responsibility between those bodies provides the best safety operation.
I believe that there may be a conflict of interest in Railtrack over safety and operation, a point that has been strongly made. The point is not, I am bound to say, unique, as the inquiry conducted by Lord Robens concluded that we should make great efforts to ensure that there was no conflict of interest. Several departments had their safety functions removed on those grounds and there

has been a massive safety improvement across the board as well as in the rail industry. I shall take care to ensure that we strike the proper balance between safety authorities and the industry.

Mr. Don Foster: May I associate the Liberal Democrats with the sympathy expressed by the Secretary of State for all those affected by the tragedy of the Paddington rail disaster? In addition, may we associate ourselves with his comments on the courage and efficiency of the emergency services and, as he was right to point out, of the members of the public who also assisted?
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's consideration of a separation of safety issues from Railtrack. Will he confirm that he accepts that Railtrack—a for-profit company—must not be judge and jury on rail safety issues? If the public are to regain confidence in our railways, Railtrack must not have the power to set and monitor its own safety standards.
I welcome the Secretary of State's desire to introduce measures intended to ensure the speedy introduction of effective systems to prevent trains from passing red signals. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, modern technology is more than capable of preventing trains from crashing into each other. The public will not understand it if that technology is not used to make our railways safe or not introduced as quickly as realistically possible.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that while contractors for the installation of the train protection and warning system—TPWS, to which he referred earlier—have been asked to speed up the time scale within which their bids are entered, Railtrack has not speeded up its process for letting the contract or allowing contractors on site? There must therefore be doubt as to whether the system will be in place within the agreed time. Will the Secretary of State agree to investigate that issue and report back to the House?
Finally, the Secretary of State said that cost is not to be the issue where safety is concerned. Will he therefore clarify who exactly is to foot the bill for safety improvements and assure us that other vital investment in the rail industry will not suffer as a result?

Mr. Prescott: I welcome the hon. Gentleman as the new spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party on transport and the environment, albeit on a sad occasion. I am certainly grateful for his warm words of support for all those involved in this terrible tragedy.
On Railtrack, I agree that there is a problem—it was expressed in the industry and it was certainly expressed in the HSE report to which I referred. Railtrack appears to have the role of both judge and jury with its standards department. That is why the Select Committee recommended that the functions should be separated. I think that when the relevant Bill was before the House both Opposition parties opposed the measure. I have therefore asked the HSE committee, which is an independent body, to study the accusations that have been made about that conflict. We expect a report shortly and I shall deal with it. However, I have a word of warning for the hon. Gentleman—I am not as yet sure to what single body the role should be transferred. No doubt we will debate that.
On the system itself, on contracts, the introduction of TPWS and concerns about automatic train protection systems, it is true that we should use the best technology.


Perhaps we have not been as effective in using the best technology to improve safety on our railways by comparison with some European railways. At the end of the day, we want a technological system that works and is effective. It is not solely about money. Indeed, the various sums mentioned in connection with automatic train protection systems and TPWS could be financed, and properly so. In talks, Railtrack and other bodies have understood that it could be done in that way. Of course, it should become an essential requirement of the industry's charges that they should cover a safe railway system. People in this country are concerned that there should be some form of train protection system. I think that that is a minimum requirement if we are to restore confidence to the travelling public.
I will investigate the hon. Gentleman's concerns. Indeed, the Davies report should give us some good engineering advice, which might deal with some of the conflicting concerns that have arisen in relation to types of technology in automatic train protection systems. I will certainly look into the matter.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The whole House will welcome the focus and urgency of the actions of the Secretary of State on the matter. This is indeed a watershed in railway accidents. People will need to be reassured that the railway system is still among the safest means of transport in the United Kingdom.
My right hon. Friend mentioned moving the safety unit out of Railtrack. It is essential for it to be a free-standing body. The Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs took evidence that made it clear that that could be part of a first step towards an independent safety authority. There is no criticism to be made of the railways inspectorate, or indeed of the Health and Safety Executive, but some worry exists about the HSE's enforcement powers. Will my right hon. Friend study how quickly it can get responses not only from Railtrack but from the train operating companies when they make recommendations?
Will my right hon. Friend also ensure that Railtrack introduces as soon as possible a confidential reporting unit—it could already have announced that—to enable train staff and drivers and anyone else connected with the railways to give confidential evidence about companies or incidents that break the law or safety rules? It is clear from my postbag that there is a nasty atmosphere in some of the companies, with bullying meaning that people are frightened to speak out. The public will be protected only when people are openly able to report on what is happening and on what is endangering lives.
Finally, the House expects not only Railtrack but all the train operating companies to produce new programmes for signalling, to respond by introducing new rolling stock and no longer to talk about bringing new installations into play only when they are given new franchises. That sort of tacky bargaining will not work any more.

Mr. Prescott: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. She is right to say that this is a watershed for safety in the railway industry. I congratulate her and her Committee on the good sense of their recommendations on these matters. I find myself constantly following them, whether in respect of the Strategic Railway Authority, the proposals for a separate, independent safety authority, or

those for a hotline or confidential line where people can talk with the confidence that they will not be exposed about the pressures that they feel they are under—and then have them properly investigated. People tend to think of that arrangement only in respect of the air industry, but it has been working quite well in Scotland, where it is financed by the companies themselves. Introducing such a scheme to the English railway system is one of the issues that I will discuss with them at the meeting on Monday.
My hon. Friend's Committee is right to propose an independent safety authority. I want to see independence associated with safety and a reduction of the conflicts of interest that, I fear, exist in some areas. I have yet to make up my mind. I appear before my hon. Friend's Committee on Thursday and we may have further exchanges on that, but I certainly want independence; there is an argument only about the sort of body needed. The Committee is again leading the way on that.
I agree with my hon. Friend on whether the TOCs should be as concerned as others in the signalling system and railway safety. In the new franchise negotiations, we have always considered what safety standards and what kind of technology and signalling should apply. The industry is making some steps towards operating nationally rather than as a fragmented body, as we have seen in the past 12 months. Bringing the companies together on Monday will remind them of their national role and of the fact that acting nationally and co-operatively, not in the fragmented way of the past few years, is the way to achieve the best standards.

Mr. John MacGregor: I join the Secretary of State in expressing my deepest sympathy to the families of the bereaved and my admiration and gratitude for the work of the emergency services. I agree that the highest importance should be attached to safety, not only in the railway industry but in all transport sectors. It is in the interests of the industry itself that it should have that attitude, not least in attracting and retaining confidence with the increasing volume of passengers and freight on the railways.
The right hon. Gentleman is also right not to reach hasty, immediate conclusions on many such matters without the evidence and views of those conducting the inquiries. As he knows, these are never easy matters to resolve. I am grateful for his recognition that it was as much the technical and viability worries as anything else that led the previous Government not to adopt the automatic train protection system.
In the Secretary of State's consideration of what he might do about the safety and standards directorate, will he bear in mind the utmost importance of ensuring that nothing is done to undermine, reduce or take away Railtrack's management, operational and day-to-day responsibility for safety?

Mr. Prescott: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. In looking up the history of this whole business, I had occasion to read several of his statements as Secretary of State for Transport dealing with these difficult issues of automatic train protection. It is right that we need to get the best system as soon as possible. Cost is not the only consideration; safety is our highest priority, as he has emphasised.
On whether there is a conflict of interests in respect of Railtrack and whether safety standards interfere with the operation of the railway system, we must always balance the best operation against the highest safety. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that even if we separate the safety and standards responsibility from Railtrack, which I am minded to do, Railtrack will still be left with the responsibility under present law to operate a safe railway system.

Ms Karen Buck: As the Deputy Prime Minister is aware, this terrible crash took place within the borders of my constituency. I am grateful to him for his warm words to local residents for their part. Indeed, as he said, staff at the nearby supermarket and primary school and many local residents not only were among the first on the scene but provided vital support for the emergency services during the course of the day.
Will my right hon. Friend spare a word and a thought for the residents of a number of blocks of flats which directly overlook the site of the crash? Emergency workers have had the grisly task of taking part in the recovery for two weeks, but in addition hundreds of residents—many of them very vulnerable people—have had to confront that sight every day for a fortnight.
Will my right hon. Friend respond to this morning's news reports that an independent safety panel found that there were still severe visibility problems at 24 signals in the approach to Paddington? Can he reassure me that the Health and Safety Commission and the railway inspectorate will examine that evidence as well as all their other findings before Paddington is allowed to reopen?

Mr. Prescott: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's remarks. I hope that she will pass on the feelings that I, the Opposition and all Members of the House have expressed about the tremendous contribution made by the local residents. Anyone who visited the site was struck by the fact that it was narrow, and access for the emergency services was difficult and depended a great deal on the co-operation of local residents. We are all extremely grateful for the role that they played in this terrible tragedy. Their help ranged from helping to get people out of burning coaches to going around offering coffee to members of the emergency services. It was remarkable and I hope that my hon. Friend will pass on the feelings of the House.
As for the 24 signals at Paddington, the various reports are being studied by the HSC and the railway inspectorate. The Paddington line will not be reopened unless the HSC is satisfied that it is a safe operation.

Mr. Nigel Jones: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his courtesy in keeping me informed of developments since the tragic accident and especially for inviting all hon. Members with constituencies along the route of the 6.03 from Cheltenham to the briefing last Monday, which was very useful.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about speed limits in the area of the accident in view of the estimated combined impact speed of around 180 mph? Will he put pressure on Railtrack and the operating

companies to upgrade the whole of the south-west region to replace single-track lines and introduce electrification so that never again will we see head-on accidents resulting in diesel fireballs such as that which occurred on this occasion?

Mr. Prescott: Yes, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we, the Health and Safety Executive and the railway inspectorate are looking at how it is possible to achieve the best form of track layout for the railway system. The accident has obviously brought that very much more to mind and the matter is highlighted at Paddington, but there are other pinchpoints in the system that could perhaps be better designed. They are being studied, particularly with regard to signals, by the HSC and the railway inspectorate.
It is difficult to know exactly what speeds were being done at the time of the crash. The black box in the cab of the Thames train was recovered, but in a much damaged state. There was also one in the back of the train, from which some information has been obtained. The other one has been returned to its country of origin for investigation to see whether we can get anything more from it. Until the inquiry gives its judgments on the matter and the HSE completes the second interim inquiry, it is difficult to tell the exact speed of impact. Various estimates from 120 mph upwards have been made, but we must wait to see what the inquiry has to say.

Mr. George Stevenson: While I welcome the statement made by my right hon. Friend, does not a further profound question need to be addressed? Can the fragmented structure of the present railway system deliver the sort of railway that he has outlined? Does he share the widespread concern that, in spite of the dramatically increased profits of Railtrack, a recent report by the Rail Regulator suggests that the rail infrastructure is deteriorating?
Is it not time to look at whether, under the powers of the proposed new Strategic Rail Authority, enough emphasis is given to exactly how much responsibility it will have in the provision of rail infrastructure in this country?

Mr. Prescott: These matters are of concern; there has been much comment about them. The Booz-Allen report was critical about the amount of money going into rail infrastructure and about Railtrack. Indeed, Railtrack has since argued that it has accepted the criticism of the Booz-Allen report and has improved. An effective infrastructure is very important; we are looking into that at present. I have no doubt that these matters are all part and parcel of what we might call the safety culture or regime in the industry, and that Lord Cullen will address himself to them.

Miss Anne McIntosh: The Deputy Prime Minister has placed great emphasis on the early use of a train protection and warning system. However, on 8 October, in the first interim report from the Health and Safety Executive, it clearly emerged that automatic train I protection equipment was part of the pilot scheme and was fitted to the Great Western train. However, the equipment has a great history of unreliability and in this instance, it was switched off. Could the Deputy Prime Minister please make it an early priority to ensure


that that equipment and the train protection and warning system are tried and tested, and operational as early as possible?

Mr. Prescott: Since that terrible tragedy—which Professor Uff is investigating at the moment, and we must await his report—actions have been taken to ensure that those systems are properly implemented and not isolated in the way that was suggested. However, we must await the report, as it has also been suggested that the driver was not familiar with that kind of system and that it had been isolated for a good period. That is another example of the fact that the automatic train protection system is not necessarily 100 per cent. operative on what we call the bolt-on system.
If ATP is put on new track—as has been done in many parts of the continent, especially on the French railways, on our own new European rail link and on the Heathrow connection—where it is specifically designed, it works very well. The difficulties tend to come with the bolt-on systems that we have. That is a difficulty that all Secretaries of State for Transport have had to face—how to balance the high-speed automatic train protection that we want to see brought in against other factors. In some cases, even if there was a workable system and I tried to bring it in, it would take 10 years to do so, whereas the one that we are now dealing with—the TPWS—can be introduced by 2003 and will reduce 70 per cent. of these incidents. I think that is a good decision to take.

Fiona Mactaggart: I represent a constituency in which five people who were killed in the incident worked, and the people of Slough are concerned to ensure that lessons are learned fast. They appreciate the message of sympathy and the speed with which the Deputy Prime Minister has acted in the matter.
However, we should not focus only on technology. I had a meeting with representatives of a local train operating company only two weeks before the episode, and learned that many drivers and signal operators had only quite recently been recruited, because of the difficulty of recruiting people to these posts in south-east England. Will my right hon. Friend examine the training of new appointees to the train operating companies to ensure first, that there is sufficient expertise and secondly, that sufficient attention is paid to the safety ethos of the railways?

Mr. Prescott: We should not be over-concerned with technology, although it does have a role to play. What we want is an effective rail system. Even with the best technology in the world, we require to take into account human error, caused either in servicing or working the system. Indeed, in a perfect world, the automatic warning system on a train would stop that train, because the warning has to be cancelled and if it is not cancelled within a few seconds, it will stop it. However, incidents still occur when drivers cancel it and there is a collision—for whatever reason. There are various systems that, if implemented, could actually stop the train itself—that is why we talk about automatic train protection systems.
However, my hon. Friend makes a very sound point about the training and recruitment of drivers. She will be aware that, when the industry was first privatised, an awful lot of drivers were taken out of the industry and there were considerable redundancies—largely because it

was thought that there would be a decline in the rail system for one reason or another, but the opposite occurred. Now, there is a desperate need to increase the number of drivers—indeed, we came to an agreement with the industry on getting 800 new drivers this year.
The time it takes to train a driver is also an important question: under British Rail, there was a single training period, but now there are varying training periods and different systems used throughout the industry. Those factors cause me concern, although I make no judgment about their safety, and it is an issue that I shall take up with the industry on Monday.

Mr. Norman Baker: I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister will join me in thanking the emergency services for their speed and efficiency in attending the incident in Lewes. I am relieved that, unlike the horrific accident at Paddington, no one was killed in last night's incident. However, the fact is that two trains crashed at Lewes, and my constituents will be horrified to learn that there have been 643 incidents of trains passing a red signal—almost two such incidents a day—in the past year. My constituents in Lewes and elsewhere expect a safe train system, but they do not believe that they have one.
When will measures be in place to ensure that no train anywhere on the British network will be able to pass a red light, as happened in Lewes last night and on many other occasions over the past year in this country? According to the press release issued this afternoon by Connex, the train operating company that runs trains through Lewes, not only did a driver pass a danger signal, but
a safety device to remind the driver to check the signals was not used.
What steps will the Deputy Prime Minister take to ensure that, once the necessary safety systems to make drivers aware of red signals have been implemented, drivers cannot override or cancel those systems and that the systems will be fail safe? We cannot have drivers cancelling signals that are there to protect them and the public at large.

Mr. Prescott: I am sure that the whole House identifies with the hon. Gentleman and his constituents in Lewes, and wishes to express great appreciation of the emergency services. From speaking to people involved in such accidents, I have learned that, terrible though the circumstances are, the one comfort is the knowledge that the emergency services will be there quickly to help. That does real credit to those services and I am delighted to have another opportunity to express our appreciation. The circumstances in Lewes were difficult, and we are all pleased that no one was injured there.
The 643 so-called SPAD incidents are a source of great concern, and it is no comfort to know that that total has come down from more than 900 incidents. We must do all we can to reduce that number. I shall place a report on the incidence of SPADs in the House of Commons Library, but it must be seen in perspective. Approximately 70 per cent. of incidents involve distances of less than 50 yd, and sometimes the train has gone over by only one, two or 10 yd, whereas the safety margin built into the system is something like 150 yd. I want to give the House a precise picture of the seriousness of the problem.
I want to prevent every such incident from occurring, and I am sure the House does as well. That is why we paid such close attention to the Health and Safety Commission's


report, which contains 22 recommendations to Railtrack and the train operating companies on ways in which to improve the record. On Monday I shall discuss with the industry how those recommendations can be implemented and how we can get something done.
During my inquiries into automatic train systems, I have been told that if the signal has gone red—even if that is a failure of the signal—the train cannot be moved if the automatic train system is on; therefore, sometimes such systems have to be isolated to enable the train to be moved. There are circumstances when technology fails, but the train has to be moved. We have to avoid the easy option of simply cancelling a warning system and getting into the habit of thinking, "It's yellow, it's yellow, so it's bound to be green." Sometimes, the signal is yellow, yellow and then red, and that is when problems arise. We have to do all we can to avoid such difficulties.

Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: I have only a brief question, unlike many of those asked today. When will we stop the system of penalties and fines that operates between the train operating companies and Railtrack, which clearly has implications for safety?

Mr. Prescott: We are reviewing several penalties and fines, and the new franchise negotiations are seeking to find a better way of dealing with those kinds of problems. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority has been appointed to provide an overall system that meets the requirements of a better railway rather than simply talking about sanctions, fines and penalties. However, make no mistake, any breach of safety will be met with heavy fines for companies. If companies are not operating proper rail safety systems, they must face the possibility of losing their licences.

Mr. David Rendel: The Deputy Prime Minister said that drivers may occasionally override and pass through a series of yellow signals before coming to a red signal and overriding it also. Is that scenario not made more likely because the warning that the driver receives in his cab at a red signal is precisely the same, both audibly and visually, as the warning for a yellow signal? If the warning given to the driver for a red signal were made different from that for a yellow signal, it would surely make the sorts of accidents to which the Deputy Prime Minister refers much less likely.

Mr. Prescott: I thank the hon. Gentleman for repeating what he said to me a week ago. I promised then that I would report his comments to the authorities and I have discussed the matter with the Health and Safety Executive, which had considered it from time to time. There is a different warning sound for green, but the same warning for yellow and red signals. That can create a great deal of confusion in the cab, with all kinds of sounds and signals. The Health and Safety Executive has promised to consider the issue, which we shall certainly put before the Cullen inquiry.

Business of the House

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): Madam Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a short business statement as an addition to my pre-recess business statement—in other words, it is not a substitution for the normal weekly business statement.
The business for Thursday 21 October will now include, at the beginning, a motion to approve the 10th and 11th reports of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. The business for the remainder of that day will follow as announced previously.

Sir George Young: The Opposition are content with the proposed change to business on Thursday. On that day, we would like raise the more substantive issue of the future business of the House.

NEW MEMBERS

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath or made the Affirmation required by law:

Bill Tynan Esq., for Hamilton, South

Neil Turner Esq., for Wigan

Military Expenditure (Conscientious Objection)

Mr. John McDonnell: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give taxpayers the right to direct that proportion of their income tax which would otherwise be spent on military purposes to a fund for international aid.
I come to the House directly from the funeral of my constituent, Brian Cooper, the driver of the Great Western train in the Paddington rail disaster. I take this opportunity to send the condolences and the sympathy of the whole House to his family.
The central purpose of the Bill is to give taxpayers who have a conscientious objection to war the right to direct to the Department for International Development or to a non-military security fund the proportion of their income tax that would otherwise be spent on military purposes.
I shall briefly explain the detail of the Bill, and then set out the rationale for its enactment. The Bill would give all taxpayers the opportunity to express on their tax return their conscientious objection to the expenditure of their taxes on preparations for war or the prosecution of war. Taxpayers would be able to express their desire for that proportion of their income tax that would otherwise be spent on military purposes to be spent instead on the prevention of war—to be invested in the search for peace rather than the pursuit of war.
Tax revenues would be diverted either to the Department for International Development, to assist areas of the world deemed at risk of conflict, or to a non-military security fund. The fund, which would be established by the Bill, would have three purposes. First, it would support research into non-military conflict resolution and peace building. Secondly, it would establish a United Kingdom mediation and arbitration service, for use at an early stage in areas of potential conflict. Thirdly, it would support international peace-building organisations, including the United Nations. The fund would be managed by trustees, appointed by the Government, with experience of non-military security, who would report annually to Parliament on the disbursement of the moneys allocated to the fund. I envisage that the simplicity of those measures would enable the scheme to be introduced as early as the tax year 2001–02.
The rationale behind the Bill is as follows. The right of conscientious objection has been acknowledged in this country for centuries. In the late 17th century, the Government sought to induce Quakers to engage in military activities. They refused, and went to prison in a body. Subsequently, in the Militia Ballot Act, Quakers as a body were excluded from military service.
The general right to refuse on the grounds of conscience to participate as a combatant in military service was included in the Military Service (No.2) Act 1916, which introduced conscription for the first world war. Bonar Law said in the Chamber that conscientious objectors were no less filled with patriotism than others fighting in the trenches, and the legislation provided alternative ways in which individuals opposed on religious or ethical grounds to fighting could serve their country in a pacific rather than an aggressive way.
The right to conscientious objection has also been recognised in the United Nations declaration on human rights and the European Union convention on human rights. More recently, the legal right to act in accordance with one's conscience has been placed firmly on the statute book by the Government through the Human Rights Act 1998.
My Bill seeks to give meaningful recognition to the right of conscientious objection and to bring the practical exercise of that right up to date. Modern wars are no longer fought with conscript armies in which a conscientious objector can refuse to serve; they are fought with high-tech weapons paid for with our taxes. Today we are not conscripted to fight; instead, our taxes are conscripted to pay for the high-tech weapons of modern warfare and the trained professionals who fire them.
For those who object to war, there is little moral difference between actually firing lethal weapons and paying for someone else to do so. The Bill gives meaning to the right of freedom of conscience in the modern world. If the right of conscientious objection is to have any real meaning today, it must be the right not to support the pursuit of war with our taxes. We must allow those who object to war the right to have their taxes used for the prevention of war.
Bonar Law acknowledged the heroic humanitarian contribution made by many conscientious objectors during wartime, and modern conscientious objectors should be allowed to make their contribution to society by investing their taxes in the peaceful service of our community.
The Bill is not an attempt to allow people to avoid paying taxes, or to reduce anyone's tax burden. Any taxpayer who wished to exercise the right under the proposed legislation would pay the same amount of tax. The only difference would be that the proportion of their tax that would have been spent on military purposes would be diverted from waging war to waging peace by developing non-military security initiatives.
Organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union already invest in non-military security work, but that is undermined by the lack of funding and a lack of political support. The Bill could release additional resources to enhance peace building and conflict resolution, thus preventing potential conflicts and addressing their root causes without resorting to military force.
In recent years, there has been a tragic failure to invest in conflict resolution at an early enough stage, and that has resulted in bitter and bloody wars, with all the resultant human suffering. Ireland, Palestine, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and now Kashmir represent a litany of failures of the civilised world to invest its resources in preventing conflict. They reflect our disastrous propensity to watch disputes fester and grow, only to intervene belatedly and militarily.
Non-military security involves a flexible, imaginative, interventionist approach to securing peace. It is based on prioritising mediation and other peace-building techniques as a way of avoiding armed conflict. It requires resources and the development of an independent arbitration service ready for use at the earliest possible stage of any potential conflict. It includes the monitoring of the implementation of agreements between parties to a potential conflict, which necessitates the creation of an independent


peace-monitoring service. It involves the stabilising of areas of potential conflict by promoting the establishment of democratic structures, civil authorities and an independent media structure to protect human rights and build social cohesion.
Where conflicts have occurred, the Bill would enable the release of resources to invest in the rebuilding of the social and economic infrastructure of a conflict zone, including the clearing of landmines and the rebuilding of homes, hospitals, schools, workshops and factories. Those resources could also support the conversion of industry from military to civil production, and could be used to retrain people in the skills needed to rebuild their communities and their economy so as to secure long-term peace.
Various arguments have been used against the measures proposed in the Bill, and some have expressed opposition to the principle of the Bill, but the right of conscientious objection has been accepted in principle in Britain for a considerable period. The Bill does nothing more than put that principle in a modern setting.
The Treasury initially raised some practical objections to the operation of the Bill's proposals, and argued that it broke the Treasury's sacred rule of opposing hypothecation of taxation. With the introduction of the system of self-assessment for individual taxation, there are no practical hurdles left. As for the alleged offence of hypothecation, the Government have introduced hypothecation of taxation in their congestion charging proposals.
Another charge is that the Bill would set a precedent for others to direct their taxes, thus opening the floodgates to other objections to Government expenditure programmes. Although many may wish to divert their taxes for political reasons, the right to refuse to kill or to pay others to kill on our behalf uniquely rests on a basic human right that is recognised in domestic and international law.
Last year, this country budgeted for more than £21 billion of military expenditure. That represents about 8.5 per cent. of the Government's total expenditure and an annual contribution of roughly £500 per taxpayer for military programmes. With such large sums, a relatively small number of taxpayers opting to exercise their rights under the Bill would result in a major investment of resources in preventing conflicts in the world by promoting peace-building measures.
The campaign to extend the right of conscientious objection to taxation has been waged across Europe and the United States. By enacting the Bill, the Government, who have been elected on a commitment to an ethical foreign policy and to putting human rights at the heart of government, could establish themselves as a world leader for peace.
In 10 weeks' time, we shall celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ and the start of a new millennium. It may be worth reminding ourselves of Christ's words in the sermon on the mount. He said:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall he called the children of God.
The Bill could assist us all in becoming peacemakers, and would make a small contribution to ensuring that the next millennium is a millennium of peace.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John McDonnell, Mr. Harry Cohen, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Audrey Wise, Mr. Neil Gerrard, Mr. Tony Benn, Dr. Rudi Vis, Ms Jenny Jones, Mr. Alan Simpson and Mr. Cynog Dafis.

MILITARY EXPENDITURE (CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION)

Mr. John McDonnell accordingly presented a Bill to give taxpayers the right to direct that proportion of their income tax which would otherwise be spent on military purposes to a fund for international aid: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 5 November, and to be printed [Bill 151].

Office for National Statistics

[Relevant document: First Report from the Treasury Committee, Session 1998–99, Office for National Statistics (HC 43), and the Government's response thereto (HC 267).]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pope.]

Mr. Giles Radice: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary on her appointment. I am sure that she will do very well indeed. I also congratulate the Treasury Sub-Committee on its excellent report on the Office for National Statistics. I am glad to see that the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd) is present, because he and his colleagues have done an excellent job. The present Chairman of the Sub-Committee, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer), has taken over the right hon. Gentleman's work very ably.
There is no doubt that the report has made the Sub-Committee a significant player in the debate. The Sub-Committee's remit is to scrutinise the Departments and agencies for which the Chancellor is responsible. It has a big programme, and it has done very well so far. It has produced reports on the Office for National Statistics and the Inland Revenue; a report on the Valuation Office Agency is expected, and a report on Customs and Excise is in progress. There are also to be hearings on the management of the Government's cash and debt. I believe that only three bodies remain uninvestigated, and they will certainly have been investigated by the end of the current Parliament. The Sub-Committee is making an important contribution to the Committee's work, and, indeed, to parliamentary accountability generally.
The first reaction of most Members to the word "statistics" is probably "very boring", but statistics are also very important. They are certainly key to the running of modern Government, a modern economy and a modern society. In paragraph 8 of the report, the Sub-Committee says—rightly, in my view—
There are three key uses for statistics: forming and implementing policies and targets, providing information to enable Parliament and the public to assess the actions of Government, and contributing to efficient resource allocation and improved competitiveness of the economy as a whole.
Not only Government use statistics. At the back of the report is a list of witnesses, including a business user group, a health statistics user group and an education statistics user group. A host of bodies needs to be certain that the Government are producing statistics of integrity.
Statistics need first to be technically accurate, and secondly to be produced in an independent way. People should be able to rely on their integrity. In particular, they should be free from political interference. Let me give an example of technical accuracy. Last year, there was a major problem involving the average earnings index. The index was clearly of great importance to the running of the economy, for the Monetary Policy Committee used it as one of its key indicators. Although the committee never said so specifically, there is no doubt that its decision to raise interest rates last June—or, rather, the June before that—was influenced by the rise in average earnings. It is true that no one quite knew what would have happened

otherwise; the MPC might have made the same decision in any event. If it is to do its job properly, however, it must have proper statistics in order to run the economy.
Perhaps more controversial is the question of political interference, Conservative Members may have their own examples, but I remember that, in 1992, there was some controversy about whether the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, had massaged the public sector borrowing requirement figures just before the 1992 election. That was a key issue. The then Treasury Committee, asked questions about that. Again, it is important that statistics should be politically independent. We should have faith—trust, as the slogan says—in our statistical system.

Dr. Julian Lewis: I am sure that the recommendation to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is recommendation (d) of the Select Committee report, which says:
For 'National Statistics', where integrity is of the utmost importance, we recommend that the ONS take responsibility rather than home Departments.
Does he agree that, in the light of the controversy over the Home Secretary's remarks to the Labour party conference about 5,000 non-existent new police officers, it is disappointing that the White Paper makes no suggestion of reforms relating to the Home Office?

Mr. Radice: I said that each side would have its own versions. I repeat: it is important that statistics should be free from political interference.
When the Sub-Committee looked at the whole issue of statistics, it had in front of it the Government's Green Paper and it wanted to influence what came out of the White Paper. It therefore laid down certain criteria in its recommendations: that there should be more effective, more accurate statistics; that national statistics, the concept of which we welcome, should be authoritative; that the head of the statistics department or body should have real authority, including access to the Prime Minister to discuss not just integrity but resources; and that the whole system should be underpinned by legislation.
No doubt, the right hon. Member for Fareham will correct me if I have paraphrased his suggestions and proposals inaccurately, but that is what the Sub-Committee said in broad principle. This is not the occasion for me to speak at length, except in praise of the Sub-Committee.
We have to test the White Paper by comparing it with the Sub-Committee's proposals. I am delighted that the White Paper was published in advance of the debate. Perhaps that is one argument for having such debates. It is no criticism of the present Minister, I hasten to add, but some might think that it would have been good if the White Paper had been published a bit earlier. I am pleased that it has been published, so I will not be curmudgeonly about it. We have the document in front of us, so we can read it. Some of us received it yesterday, when it was published, and have read it. My overall judgment on it is that it is a good start, but that there is some room for improvement.
I propose to refer to three or four themes. I welcome the post of national statistician. It is a good idea to have an important figure in charge of national statistics. It is important that we choose a top-rate person to do the job.


We have to ask: has he or she sufficient authority to do the job properly? In relation to the national statistics, I would say yes, because his or her professional responsibility for national statistics will be separate from that of Ministers, and that seems to me to be an important step forward.
In relation to departmental statistics, the situation is more ambiguous. What should we deem to be national statistics, and how might we resolve the argument? The White Paper is ambivalent on that point. Although the national statistician will necessarily be involved in resolving that argument, I should like to know how we are to do so in relation to national crime and health statistics, for example. If Ministers are sensible, they will realise that they will have far greater authority if they can say, "I can cite national statistics on crime and health, which state the following."
The people chosen for the statistics commission must be highly distinguished. However, I have no quarrel with the idea that not every commission member should be a professional statistician, as one or two non-statisticians may be able to bring other qualities to bear. Nevertheless, the majority of commission members should be professional statisticians. Members of the Monetary Policy Committee—to use that model—are appointed because they are highly qualified in monetary policy.
We have to ask whether statistics commission members will be independent and sufficiently competent and authoritative for their pronouncements to carry weight. I welcome the Government's commitment to the commission's independence—of which Ministers are making much—and welcome the commission's ability to make not only spot-checks on quality, but an annual report to Parliament. Any body that can make an annual report to Parliament is starting out on the road to independence. Once a body is able to make an annual report to Parliament, it can make statements independently of Government, which is an important development.
I agree with the Sub-Committee that we should enshrine in legislation the statistics commission's independence, as we did for the Monetary Policy Committee. Although there is pressure on legislative time, I am glad that Ministers are at least keeping an open mind, and that the statistics commission has been given the task of reviewing the issue.
I welcome the statement in the White Paper that national statistics should be scrutinised by Parliament. Although the commission's report to Parliament will provide a focus for such scrutiny, I hope that Select Committees—particularly the Treasury Committee—will continue to have a role. The Select Committee has already shown that we can do a job of scrutiny, and we should continue doing so.
On national statistics and the Government's new model, the proof of the pudding will certainly be in the eating. The choice of national statistician will be very important. If a really impressive person is chosen, it will send a signal to those who understand about statistics. Moreover, if potential national statisticians think that they will not be overruled by Ministers, they will go forward for the job. There may also be a role for confirmation hearings,

which the Treasury Committee has pioneered, in ensuring that those who are chosen for the statistics commission are impressive people.
The White Paper contains only very broad outlines, and we shall need to see some of the detail. The framework for national statistics will be very important. Treasury Committee and Treasury Sub-Committee members will be watching developments with great interest.

Sir Peter Lloyd: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) for his kind words about the Sub-Committee report, and for selecting some of the most significant points.
Although, alas, I am no longer a member of the Select Committee on the Treasury—which the right hon. Gentleman chairs with tolerance and skill—I was lucky enough to be the Chairman of the Sub-Committee which produced the report on the Office for National Statistics. I am sure that I speak for my erstwhile colleagues in expressing gratitude for the help that we received from the expert individuals and organisations that gave us written and oral evidence, and in saying a word in appreciation of our astute and immensely energetic Clerk, Jennifer Long. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thought that members of the Committee would want to cheer that.
I welcome the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to her post, and I wish her well. Although I shall be critical of the Government, I realise that she arrived well after the die had been cast, and that the Government's shortcomings are not hers. I hope that she will be able to remedy some of them in the months ahead.
It was no accident that the Sub-Committee, which was set up last year to look in turn at all the Departments and agencies for which the Treasury is responsible, made the ONS the subject of its first inquiry. It was plain to us that sound, comprehensive statistical data which everyone could understand and rely on were increasingly essential for good government, and that the services provided by the ONS and the Government's statistical service were central to effective policy formation by Ministers, and to the ability of the public at large—as well as Ministers themselves—to judge their success.
It seems that the Green Paper, "Statistics: A Matter of Trust" reflected the same view, and that the Government were determined to make a fundamental change in the structure of statistical services. We hastened our inquiry in the summer of 1998 with the intention not of pre-empting the Government's Green Paper consultation but—having listened to our expert witnesses—of providing a set of criteria which we felt the new arrangements that were to be produced by the Government last autumn should satisfy.
We need not have hurried. The White Paper was finally published only yesterday—a year later, on the last day of the recess and one day before this debate, making it certain that most Members will not have had a chance to read it and that none will have had the opportunity to study it. It is deplorable that the Government should have contrived to ensure that Members had the minimum of opportunity to reflect on the White Paper before the one day of debate on the subject. The timing of the publication, and of the debate, is effectively in the


Government's hands. It is as if the Government are ashamed of their White Paper and do not want it talked about.
Having read the White Paper, I am not clear why it should have taken so long to produce. It sticks more closely to the status quo than the Green Paper appeared to presage. Perhaps the delay and the disappointing content are both explained by the difficulty of finding agreement within Government for the more thoroughgoing change that is required. At this point—time to study it apart—it is difficult to know, as the right hon. Member for North Durham said, what to make of the contents, as much waits to be spelt out in another paper, "The Framework for National Statistics".
A number of major points need to be made now in the light of the Sub-Committee's recommendations and the existing White Paper. The proposal for an independent statistics commission is certainly welcome, as far as it goes. It makes sense that such a commission should be comparatively small and coherent but—apart from the important task of monitoring the methodology and standards of ONS outputs—its role appears to be solely advisory. It may be more wieldy, but it seems to be little different from the advisory committee which the Government have recently disbanded. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House why the Government disbanded the advisory committee when they did. Would it not have been valuable to have the informed comment of that committee on the White Paper? At a time when the Government needed the committee's advice, they got rid of it.
The Sub-Committee set much store by the recommendation that the commission, rather than Minsters, should decide what statistics should be included in the scope of national statistics if the desired level of integrity—real and perceived—for important statistical series is to be achieved. Hospital waiting lists and school league tables are obvious candidates, as so much store is set by them in terms of policy formation and the public's judgment of the Government. The White Paper makes it plain that Ministers will continue to have the last word.

Mr. Oliver Heald: Does my right hon. Friend agree that what he says is relevant to issues such as police numbers? The integrity of the statistics is vital and there is a huge cloud over the Home Secretary's recent speech.

Sir Peter Lloyd: I agree with my hon. Friend that all Government statistics should be absolutely reliable, although however reliable they are—even if they are produced entirely honestly and clearly and launched in that way by the ONS—politicians on both sides will cherry-pick them to bolster their argument. One sees that at party conferences sometimes, and my hon. Friend has picked a good example.
We recommended in particular that, because it is of such central significance, the retail prices index should cease to be the sole responsibility of the Chancellor and should be a candidate for ONS management. However, the Government made it clear in an earlier response that the RPI was too important and too widely used for the Chancellor to let it go. That reply makes nonsense of pious rhetoric to the effect that key national statistics should be seen to be expertly and independently produced. The RPI is apparently too key. If it needs the Chancellor's

protection, why is not the earnings index, which is so significant for the Bank of England when it sets interest rates? The Chancellor was rightly bold when he passed responsibility for interest rates to the Bank of England. He should show the same qualities by passing responsibility for the RPI to the ONS in due course.

Mr. Oliver Letwin: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the situation is slightly worse than that? If the Chancellor can manipulate the inflation figures that underlie his target, that target is in his own hands, so he is making nonsense of his policy of delegating monetary control to the Monetary Policy Committee.

Sir Peter Lloyd: My hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good point, with which I entirely agree. He will understand that I am trying to be as cross-party as possible and am sticking to supporting the recommendations of the Sub-Committee rather than laying on with a trowel the reasons why they are even better than some of us thought when we made them.
During its inquiries, the Sub-Committee became very aware that the director of the ONS and his senior colleagues had had a difficult task in building an effective organisation following the merger in 1996 of the Central Statistical Office, the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and a range of responsibilities and statistical outputs from a number of Government Departments. We felt that the ONS had made commendable progress, but I should like to quote recommendation 48, which puts the issue in the proper context:
We recognise that Dr Holt"—
the director—
faces many difficulties arising from the newness of the organisation, the problems it has inherited and the limitations of the present governance structure. We believe that the combination of roles and responsibilities which the ONS Director is required to fulfil are, as presently constituted, more of a hindrance than a help in dealing with these problems. We recommend that the Government accord a high priority to ensuring that the 'Head of National Statistics'"—
the national statistician, as he will now be called—
role is managerially workable and supported by sufficient powers to co-ordinate the production of official statistics as well as ensuring that the Head has the required freedom from political interference.
Alas, there is little sign in the White Paper that the Government have fully comprehended that problem. It looks increasingly as though the national statistician, like the director before him, will sit at the top of the ONS with the commission, to whom he is not directly responsible, looking over his shoulder. The ill-defined responsibility for the standards of statistical work done in Departments will continue, without the national statistician having the authority to act if and when necessary.
The Sub-Committee also expressed concern at the lack of strategic vision across the range of official statistics, which we mostly attribute to the organisational structure of the ONS. We feared that the White Paper might not deal with that issue, and our fears appear to be confirmed by yesterday's publication. That issue may be covered in the framework document, but the White Paper gives no grounds for optimism; nor does it encourage us to believe that we are moving beyond the Rayner view that official statistics should be provided primarily to meet the management needs of Government. The needs of local government and business are compelling and should be


far better served, not least by better coverage of the vast and growing service area. We recommended that the ONS should publish a document setting out the criteria that it will use to assess the competing demands of Government, local government and business. The Government may have it in mind to do that, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that point later.
As part of KPMG's efficiency review, it was commissioned to make a report. It recommended that great savings would be made by contracting out much of the collection of raw statistical data, releasing resources to improve the service generally and—importantly—releasing the demands on top management time which could then be devoted to strategic and customer concerns, both of which need more attention than they receive at present. Why did the Government not take KPMG's advice?
The Sub-Committee's most important and difficult recommendation is in paragraph 10. I shall read it in full so that its meaning is clear:
Canadian Statistician Ivan Fellegi has argued that 'A key end objective is to help the public policy process to discern the relevant "policy levers" that are likely to be most effective in moving us toward the achievement of desirable social and economic objectives' and cautioned that 'We cannot assume that the traditional policy levers are necessarily the most important ones.' For example, he suggested that life expectancy might be affected as much by family income as by medical intervention. We asked Dr Holt, the Director of the ONS, about its role in identifying statistics which would improve understanding of a particular policy area. He replied that 'It is a perception that this aspect of Government statistics is not well developed' and that he expected the issue to be raised in the Green Paper consultation. We recommend that in its response to the Green Paper the Government shows how the independent expertise of the GSS and ONS can be better used to translate politically determined objectives into meaningful targets and indicators.
Everybody can think of examples of that. For example, the reliance on waiting list statistics which, even if accurate, may help to distort rather than improve the provision of health care, and the reliance on class sizes, in statistical form, as a key measure when evidence suggests that others are probably more relevant to raising educational standards and ensuring that educational budgets are spent most effectively.
Elected Ministers must of course set policy, but it is in their interests—and certainly in the electorate's interest—that they have the best statistical assessments to help them find the ways to achieve policy goals. Those ways will not necessarily be the obvious ones, those most readily to hand or those to which Ministers committed themselves in opposition.
I am in good company in being critical of the White Paper. The Royal Statistical Society was extremely disappointed with it, and I suspect that few will give it many cheers. If the Government had been less inconsiderate in the timing of its publication—if I had had the opportunity to study more closely its every detail—I might have found cause to welcome at greater length its promise of higher standards of methodology and more coherent and user-friendly forms of publication. I note, too, that the Sub-Committee was grateful that the Government promptly published the reports that they commissioned during the examination of the Green Paper, although it would have just cause for complaint if the Government had not published them.
It is disappointing that the Government have not yet given any sign that they have the courage and wisdom to recognise that they would help themselves if they created a competent structure and handed to it the responsibility to perform a thorough, independent and professional job on all the main statistics that they use and by which the public judge them. However, I draw encouragement from the fact that the commission will be in a position to report publicly on those matters and that the Government have committed themselves to review the case for legislation should the commission recommend it in two years' time. I hope that the commission will use its opportunity well and that more of the Sub-Committee's recommendations will be put into practice than the White Paper portends.

Mr. Jim Cousins: I join my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary on her promotion. I also congratulate her on her wisdom in producing the White Paper the day before our debate. I do not wish to be churlish, and I recognise that this is the first day back for Parliament. It is welcome that the White Paper has been published, albeit that we have not had time to study it in as much detail as we would have liked.
I also add my thanks to the former Chairman of the Sub-Committee, the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd), for his leadership. I suspect that he will know that that is not an empty courtesy from the other side of the House, but is said with genuine affection and respect. I identify myself with many—I can probably statistically say most, though sadly not quite all—of the remarks that he made about the White Paper.
We should acknowledge that the Government have taken other steps besides the White Paper to improve the quality of national statistics. The White Paper is entitled "Building Trust in Statistics". It is unfortunate that that title was necessary. We have to rebuild confidence in Government statistics because some notable failures, especially the collapse of the earnings index, have gone to the heart of policy making. That could have—in some ways, it already has had—an effect on the decisions of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee and it might have brought those decisions into technical disrepute. I think that it is extremely unfortunate that that episode occurred. One of the aims of this debate, and of the Sub-Committee's recommendations, is that there should be no repetition of that event. The Government are clearly set on correcting those difficulties.
I welcome the fact that, over the summer, the Government appointed two new directors of the Office for National Statistics. I especially welcome the appointment of Mr. Pullinger, with his expertise in census and small-area statistics. That will be warmly welcomed by many of our colleagues in local government. I welcome also the appointment of Mr. Goldsmith, with his extensive commercial background. As the whole House recognises, and as the Sub-Committee's recommendations make clear, there need to be considerable improvements in the quality of British commercial and economic statistics. For example, we are engaged in a major endeavour to raise the level of productivity in this country, but we simply do not know enough about it.
In that connection, I welcome also the Government's decision to produce an index on services and distribution. That will go some way towards filling another gap in statistics that the Sub-Committee discovered and listed in its recommendations. I regret that it will be some time before the series of statistics on services will be robust enough to provide a solid basis for making policy. However, it is important that we know more about the service sector of the economy, and about the banking and financial services on which so much of this country's expertise and wealth now depend.
I do not wish to introduce a sour note into the proceedings but, although I acknowledge the very important role played by Dr. Holt in creating the Office for National Statistics in 1996—a not inconsiderable task, to which the House ought to pay tribute—I believe that he could and should have used his right of access to the Prime Minister as soon as he became aware of the deficiencies in the earnings statistics inherited from the former Department of Employment. It is important to make that clear, as future Government national statisticians must regard their right of access to the Prime Minister as an important right in the defence of the public interest. It is not simply an icon to be kept in the cupboard.
Dr. Holt became aware of the deficiencies early in 1996. If he had gone to the Prime Minister at that time, or a little later to the present Prime Minister, we might have avoided the collapse of the average earnings index in 1998, in what were difficult and potentially troubling circumstances. I hope that future holders of the position will bear in mind what I have said, and that they will use their right of access to the Prime Minister in a solid, proactive and meaningful way, on behalf of Parliament and the British public as a whole.
I turn now to the White Paper's proposals to create a statistical commission, which will have clear duties to defend the public interest and patrol the integrity of Government statistics. Clearly, those proposals are to be welcomed, as they represent a considerable step forward. However, I hope that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will say how some of the potential difficulties will be resolved.
The White Paper states that Ministers will be able to block the access of the statistical commission and the national statistician to the work of their Departments. The House is entitled to seek an assurance from my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary that that blocking ability will be used sparingly, that its use will be reported to Parliament—not least in the annual report of the statistical commission—and that, if right of access is blocked, a full, serious and comprehensive explanation will be given to Parliament. We must operate on the basis that the ability of Ministers to block access by the national statistician and the statistical commission to statistics being prepared in Departments will be used only in the most exceptional and unusual circumstances.

Mr. Letwin: I subscribe entirely to the hon. Gentleman's view, as far as it goes, but can he imagine any circumstances under which it would be legitimate to block the access of the national statistician?

Mr. Cousins: It is unwise in debates such as this to engage in flights of fancy or to exercise one's

imagination, but I can envisage circumstances in which Ministers might wish to block that access. However, as a Select Committee member of long standing, I am not sure that I should endorse or register approval of the possible exercise of that power to block access.
We are all conscious that this is a new Government, who have embarked on some serious and new projects that will require much stronger statistics than were inherited from the previous Government. We will require much more solid information to guide us in tackling matters such as health improvement and health inequality. We will require better small-area statistics to guide our colleagues in local government and enable them monitor their work.
The Government, too, will require better statistics to determine what really can be made of employment zones, health action zones, education action zones, the sure start initiative, and the like. It is important that the right statistical basis to support such policy initiatives and to measure their achievements is available. Sadly, that is not the case at present, and we look to the statistical commission to help bring it about.
It is extremely important that the Government consider again the need for legislation that would defend and entrench the rights of the Office for National Statistics, and of the proposed statistical commission and office of the national statistician. It is absurd that the quality of small-area statistics in this country depends on a curious quirk of the Census Act 1920, which says that there must be full cost recovery. It is ridiculous that that ancient provision should impede the development of proper small-area statistics, given that the House, local government and the devolved Parliaments all need them in their work. I hope that the Government will reconsider that matter.
It is important that the code of practice in national statistics, which is what we shall have to rely on for the integrity of Government information, should be entrenched and defined in law. It is important that the right of access to information—by Members of Parliament and by our fellow citizens—should also be entrenched in law. Parliament will soon consider freedom of information legislation, so it is important that that concept be brought to bear on the information and statistical work of the Government. I hope that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will look at that matter again.
In addition, I hope that my hon. Friend will assure the House that the statistical commission and the Government national statistician will have right of access to the service agreements between the Bank of England and the Office for National Statistics that underpin much of the work of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Parliament should be aware of the dialogue between the Bank of England and the Government in that respect. It should know of any exchange of information between the Bank and the Government, and of any anxieties that may exist about the quality of the economic information being dealt with.
I share some of the anxieties expressed by other hon. Members about the fact that responsibility for the retail prices index will remain with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I believe that the Chancellor would be far more comfortable if responsibility for the RPI were passed to the statistical commission and the national statistician. My right hon. Friend would benefit from


passing over that responsibility and would find that remarks—such as those he apparently intends to make tonight about average earnings—would be reinforced if he operated against a background in which no one could dispute the independence or integrity of the information that he intended to deploy.
There is current and active concern in the House over whether the RPI properly reflects the needs and conditions of pensioners. That cannot be dealt with in a political way as it requires independent and robust investigation. I ask the Minister to consider these matters. We, and the Government, might be better served by legislation that entrenched the right to independence of the statistical commission and the national statistician.
Finally, we have to deal with the devolved Parliaments. The Government address the Parliaments in the White Paper and have also produced within the past few weeks a memorandum of understanding on statistics between the devolved Parliaments and the UK Parliament and Government. The devolved Parliaments clearly have their own duties and their own understandings of priorities. No one wants to stand in the way of that.
However, it is of fundamental importance to citizens of the UK that on some basic measures of public information—waiting lists or economic information such as measurements of productivity—statistical unity should remain. There must be a common base for statistics. The UK must not be prised apart by a growing disconnection between statistical bases deployed for policy making in the devolved Parliaments and the Westminster Parliament. I hope that the Economic Secretary will address that point, and I know that the Government would wish to ensure that statistical unity was maintained.
Our debate is informed by a Select Committee report on an important matter of public interest. We acknowledge the serious consideration and importance that the Government accorded to their response and the position that they have taken in the debate. We welcome publication of the White Paper, which in many ways goes towards meeting the anxieties and recommendations of the Treasury Committee. However, the White Paper remains deficient in some vital respects. We invite the Economic Secretary to consider views expressed across the House about those deficiencies. I am sure that she will at some time and in some form consider those matters again.

Mr. Edward Davey: I, too, welcome the Minister to the Treasury Bench. I look forward to our debate today and debates over next year's Finance Bill. I am sure that she looks forward to that as much as I do.
I congratulate the Treasury Committee on its work and its report. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd) and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) on their speeches, although I felt that they did not do full justice to their report. In many ways, I felt, they hid their feelings of disappointment about the White Paper. They were critical of it, but pulled their punches.
I had the privilege of speaking today to the president of the Royal Statistical Society, which is incredibly disappointed by the White Paper. The society was

encouraged by the Green Paper and the Government's consultation process. It agreed with many of the Treasury Committee's recommendations. However, it feels that the Government have let the side down in the White Paper, the last-minute publication of which seems to reflect a new Government attitude. The society fears that the Government will not be as open and transparent as they had implied during consultation and that they will not deliver on their promises.
We have seen the same happen before under the present Government. They promise a sea change and a modernisation of the whole approach to the government of the country. However, when they try to deliver, they fail significantly to do so. The White Paper is another example of that.
The society would make two major points if it could speak to the House. First, it is concerned about the scope of statistics that will fall to the statistics commission. The commission is to be given control of national statistics, but not of other statistics produced by Departments. Decisions about whether the commission should have access to information will, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central said, be taken by Ministers. He called that a right to block, and I believe that that position is unfortunate.
The second key weakness of the White Paper is that there will be no legislative framework. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government remained open-minded about that, but it is noticeable that they will remain open-minded until after the next general election as they do not promise legislation before it. It would be nice to have an independent statistics commission before then to judge the Government on their election pledges last time round. We could see whether the statistics that the Government are producing on hospital waiting lists and class sizes are correct, and judge whether the pledges have been kept. The House and the country would feel more confident about all the statistics the Government publish if the figures came from a statistics commission. The failure to legislate is a great weakness.
I want to link those two points to the Government's failure on freedom of information. Citizens and Parliament will not know what statistics and what factual information lie behind the Government's policies. They will have no access to that information under the draft Freedom of Information Bill, even after the changes announced during the summer recess. The blanket exemption will apply to statistics, and that is much to be regretted.
On the detail on the scope of statistics to come under the commission, the Treasury Committee's first report stated, at paragraph 13, that
in order to achieve the desired levels of integrity, real and perceived, it will be crucial that the Head of National Statistics or of any statistical commission decides which statistics are included within the scope of National Statistics rather than Ministers, and for the distinction to be strongly enforced.
However, the White Paper, written on the basis of the Committee's recommendations, states at paragraph 4.5 that Ministers will decide whether any changes to the scope of national statistics are appropriate, publishing their response. That has caused consternation among the country's top statisticians.
The Royal Statistical Society, in a press release yesterday,
expressed its extreme disappointment at the very limited scope of the Government's proposals to guarantee the future integrity of National Statistics. Only the statistics currently produced by the Office for National Statistics will automatically come under the new arrangements.
The society adds:
National Statistics has been defined much too narrowly.
During my conversation with the president of the society, she said that the narrow definition went against all the soundings that the Government had given during the consultation period. It is her belief that the vast majority of respondents favoured a much broader definition of the statistics that the commission is to control. The Government have not delivered on what they were promising the respondents to that consultation process.
Other models were debated during the process, such as the Select Committee model, whereby it would be up to the commission to decide what statistics it should have access to. One might have considered a purchaser-provider split, with Government Departments purchasing statistics from a commission that was in charge of all national statistics, which were defined as covering everything. The Government should study those models. I hope that the Economic Secretary will tell us that this is not the last shot and that the Government will reconsider whether they are prepared to widen the scope of the statistics that will come under the new commission.
The importance of statistics in public policy debate cannot be underestimated. In the Select Committee report, we see how they can be used to make decisions about the allocation of resources and to measure the Government's performance so that we can scrutinise Government properly. In recent years, they have been used to measure the objectives and targets of Government, which is relevant to the debate about waiting lists.
Unless the Government are prepared to ensure in legislation that such statistics, which are crucial to public policy, are made available independently, they will not rebuild the confidence of the British people in the statistics that we debate. Under the previous Government, we had an annual discussion about the unemployment statistics and whether the various definitions were correct, which brought the whole process into disrepute. Many people did not believe that Government when they said that unemployment was coming down. There was a huge argument about which way it was going and about what the real level was. On the one hand, the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) might have put it at 3 million, 4 million or even 5 million, while other politicians put it much lower even than the Government. That brought the whole debate into disrepute and made it rather sterile.
It is so important for the Government to get this matter right. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central talked about pensions. He is right; that is a topical debate. As we know, the retail prices index figure for September was low at 1.1 per cent., which means that pensioners who rely on the basic state pension are looking forward to an increase of only 75p a week next April. The important question is whether that is the right inflation measure. Should we use the underlying rate, or should we consider a special pensioner RPI? Those statistics could be made available by a statistics commission. It could give

Parliament public advice about the most appropriate RPI. Pensioners in my constituency will not be terribly happy if the current RPI is used to make the decision.
Deciding the right statistic is also important. We note that the Government have ensured that they will keep total control over such decisions. One might argue that subjectivity is involved when one is commenting on and deciding between different statistics—that that is always subjective and should therefore be a political decision. I believe that if such a decision is based on authoritative advice, the Government can be held far more accountable for it.
When the Government present their information, in particular when it relates to election pledges and key political targets, they are always likely to try to manipulate the figures. I do not think that any of us could say hand on heart that if our party were in government, we would not be up to the same tricks. Of course we would and that is why the Government must try to ensure that independence is enshrined in the system.
Debating statistics in the House is always difficult; the truth is often complex. One isolated statistic can give one picture, but when others relating to it are considered, one can draw a completely different picture. That is why we need the statistics commission to give that sort of high-level advice—commentary, if one likes—when it provides statistics for the Government. Judging from the White Paper, I do not see that sort of role being given to the commission.
There are many other problems, but because of lack of time, I will mention only three. The first is that so much is resting on the document, "The Framework for National Statistics", as the right hon. Member for Fareham pointed out. I have it on authority that the Royal Statistical Society would like to be consulted on that framework document. I hope that the Government will not publish it as soon as possible, as they state in the White Paper. Before it is published, many people, including in the House, should have a chance to have an input. If the Government fail to do that, they will be breaking faith with their previous excellent consultation process.
The second problem is that the accountability proposals in the White Paper should be reviewed. The Government seem to want to ensure that the statistics commission reports to the Treasury. They want to maintain that structure. As the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) said, it is time that we ensured that such bodies report to the House—to Select Committees. If we could develop the informal process of confirmatory systems into a statutorily based system of confirmatory hearings, we could ensure accountability and strengthen the integrity and independence of such commissions.
The third and final problem is that the commission is being given the huge task of auditing, collecting and presenting. According to the White Paper, the commission will be relatively small. Unless it is given serious backing, in terms of both resources and support, it will find that too hard a task. As we approach the census, that is extremely worrying.
The Government started on this process with the best of intentions. They talked about ensuring independence, rebuilding trust, maintaining and developing integrity and improving quality. Although some of the recommendations of the White Paper go that way, by ducking out and not ensuring that an independent statistics


commission can comment on and be involved in all statistics if it so chooses, and by failing to ensure that its independence is enshrined in law, I am afraid that the Government will fail to meet their own objectives.

Mr. David Kidney: I was pleased to serve on the Treasury Sub-Committee under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd), who was always a wise and good-humoured guide in our deliberations. What he omitted to say about our choice of the Office for National Statistics as the subject for our first inquiry is that the members of the Committee suspected that it would be a fairly straightforward issue—a gentle dipping of our toes into the water. Little did we suspect that there would be the great national explosion of the failure of the average earnings index in October, which would concentrate the attention, seemingly, of the world on the work of the investigation and of the ONS itself.
In defence of the Government—I ask myself why I should defend them, but I choose to do so—and as regards the timing of the publication of the White Paper, following what happened with the average earnings index we had two investigations into the index, a further review of the efficiencies of the ONS and the deliberations of our Sub-Committee report—all of which feature strongly in the White Paper, which is good to see, as matters that have been taken into account. Those also include the work of the Select Committee. That is all pleasing and a reasonable defence of the timing of the production of the White Paper.
Information is power, and statistics are a component of that for policy advisers or makers in the public, private or voluntary sectors and for the public at large. Everyone is interested in possessing accurate statistics and information. I shall use the story of the average earnings index to show what happens when official statistics are compromised and what the possible causes of that might be. The story of the AEI shows two pressing needs for the work of the Office for National Statistics. First, there should be strong management capable of clear strategic thinking. Secondly, the management must have robust independence from political interference.
The right place to start the story of the AEI is in the spring of 1998. The earnings growth figures that spring were worrying. The Monetary Policy Committee had delivered itself of the opinion that average earnings growth in excess of about 4.5 per cent. would be inconsistent with meeting its inflation target without having to raise interest rates. That spring, earnings growth was about that figure. Everyone knew that bonuses influenced the figures but people wanted to know whether they represented one-off payments as a reward for the past 12 months' performance, in which case they could largely be discounted as an inflationary pressure, or whether there was something more to them. In spring 1998, the Bank of England asked the ONS to work on analysing the bonus-related element. In April and May that year, the ONS did some work on that and passed its findings to the MPC.
In June 1998, the MPC announced another rise of a quarter of a percentage point in the base rate, to 7.5 per cent. That decision surprised forecasters and, in explaining its

decision, the MPC said that it had had regard to the average earnings growth figures. The figure available was that from the ONS for March 1998, which had risen to 4.9 per cent., clearly above the 4.5 per cent. that the MPC had stated was consistent with not raising interest rates. Given the MPC's thinking, it was no surprise that it raised interest rates at that months' meeting. The MPC was heavily criticised at the time for that rate rise, for giving too much emphasis to only one economic indicator. In defence of the MPC, although the indicator that it was relying on was earnings growth, it did not rely only on the figures from the ONS. It had access to other information such as that produced by the Reward Group, business surveys and its contacts with the business community. Nevertheless, that was its decision.
We returned to the average earnings index in October 1998. The public's attention was attracted to the index by two sets of startling revisions in a short space of time. First, on 6 October, the earnings figures for May, June and July were slightly revised. There were no great shocks there, but on 14 October, the whole back-run of data was heavily revised without any warning to the markets interested in the statistics. It was a stunning event and everyone was shocked. There was huge criticism of the MPC's decision back in June because the revised data suggested that the peak in earnings growth in spring and summer had not been as high as the MPC had been led to believe. One national newspaper carried a banner headline saying that the MPC's blunder had cost the country 10,000 jobs. Little wonder that the Chancellor was described as being incandescent with rage.
The director of the ONS, Tim Holt, announced that he was suspending the index forthwith and that an independent inquiry was to be undertaken by Southampton university into what had gone wrong. He said that it was right to suspend the index from publication because everyone had lost trust in the statistics. At the same time, the Chancellor announced a separate inquiry into what had gone wrong with the index, led by Andrew Turnbull from the Treasury and Mervyn King from the Bank of England. They directed Martin Weale of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research to conduct a second inquiry especially for the Chancellor. Both inquiries produced reports this March, when the average earnings index was rehabilitated and reinstated.
It is interesting now to look back at what the reviews concluded was the state of earnings growth back in spring and summer of 1998. The reviews showed that the original figures, prior to any revisions, were about correct; if anything, they were slightly overstated. It was a case of "as you were". It could be argued that the MPC had been vindicated but, alas, there were no banner headlines to that effect.
During the furore of the reviews, the Treasury also announced a new efficiency review of the ONS. KPMG was to report to a Treasury-appointed steering group with recommendations for making further efficiency savings in the costs of the ONS. That review led to several recommendations, three of which I shall cite as examples. It said that the number of ONS offices could be reduced, that more support services could be outsourced and that there should be changes at the top of the management. The collective result of the recommendations would eventually be annual savings of £20 million. In announcing that it accepted most of the report's recommendations, the Treasury said that the £20 million would be recycled into improving the rest of the ONS's services.
I fear that all this demonstrates the potential for political control of statistics. The Government set the ONS' s budget and are its major customer. On this occasion, the Government appointed their own review into what had happened with a particular set of statistics and put in train their own efficiency review. Those are the sort of things that we as politicians should guard against in protecting national statistics. As the Green Paper said, it is a matter of trust.
As the right hon. Member for Fareham said, the ONS has many other customers, not only the Government of the day. As my example showed, the Bank of England is an important customer. The nations and regions of the United Kingdom, local government, business and the public at large also all want accurate statistics.
When the Government responded to the Treasury Select Committee report, it seemed that there was agreement between the Committee and Government on two things that should be improved in the ONS: improving the statistical base and capacity, and prioritising services to users of the ONS. That offers some encouragement as to how we go from here.
I want to consider the White Paper. No one has mentioned that our report draws attention to the international comparison of the costs of the ONS with those of similar bodies in other countries. We get our statistics remarkably cheaply. Who am I to say whether those countries are spending too much on the provision of statistics or we too little?
Despite several speeches this evening which showed ways in which doubt could be cast on statistics, the people producing them or the Government standing behind them, it has to be said that the evidence received by the Select Committee was that by and large the statistics produced by the ONS are among the best in the world in terms of their reliability and the processes by which they are produced. It is important to make that point to redress the balance of the tone of the debate so far. There is no reason why we should not have it as our ambition, White Paper or not, to make the statistics produced in this country world leaders. Indeed, that phrase appears in the foreword to the White Paper.
Some of the vital issues to be discussed as a result of the White Paper have already been mentioned by other hon. Members. In deciding what statistics are national and what are not, I stand by the recommendation of the Select Committee. It ought to be the job of the national statistician, the statistics commission or a combination of the two. It is not the job of Ministers who want to defend their departmental interests. So in that area, the White Paper needs further development.
Mention has also been made of the right of the director of national statistics to go to the top—to the Prime Minister of the day—to complain about any infringement of the integrity of national statistics. As two hon. Members have mentioned already, the Select Committee recommended that in addition to being able to go to the Prime Minister about the integrity of national statistics, the director ought to be able to go to the Prime Minister on the question of resources. Resources are the Achilles heel of the White Paper. There is no explicit mention of the mechanisms by which anyone can decide whether we are spending the right or the wrong amount on producing national statistics. That needs to be corrected.
Four components are essential to our future statistical service. The first is quality management. That is dealt with in the White Paper. The second is political accountability—not interference in management. To some extent, that is dealt with in the White Paper, but not to my satisfaction. I make it clear that that is my own opinion. The third is adequate resources, which I have now mentioned twice. It is important to stress a third time that, when used by some people such as exporters, accurate and timely statistics may have an influence on the wealth of the country. So if we need to spend more money to produce greater wealth, that is a consideration to which we ought to have regard. The fourth component is customer involvement. It is important for the commission to take on the role of ensuring that the views of those who want good statistics are heard right at the top of the tree.
I said at the beginning of my speech that information is power. I hope that what we are about tonight is helping to form a view on how to create a statistical commission and national statistician that produce statistics that contribute to the power and wealth of our country. I suggest that statistics ought to be impartial, reliable, accessible, timely and economic to produce. When right hon. and hon. Members read Hansard tomorrow, they will see that the first letters of those words spell irate. I suggest that Members of this House will be very angry indeed if we do not produce a statistical service of which we can all be proud.

Mr. Oliver Letwin: I begin by echoing the welcome given to the Economic Secretary in her new post by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I also welcome the debate. In many ways, it shows the House at its best. We have heard measured comments from hon. Members of all parties. We are debating a Select Committee report that firmly shows the House of Commons trying to fulfil its age-old task of holding Governments to account and insisting, in the terms used by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), that the public, experts and democracy as a whole have the power to understand what is being done to them and on their behalf. Statistics, therefore, are not a byway. They are one of the centrepieces of democratic society. Without faith in accurate statistics, we stand in imminent danger of beginning at any time on the slippery slope to totalitarian rule. I do not mean that we are anywhere near it today or have been at any time in our history, but it behoves us, and it is right that we take the responsibility seriously, to concentrate without the slightest complacency on whether our statistics are accurate and our systems for making sure robust. Otherwise, the threat to our democratic liberty will be very great.
I welcome the Select Committee report. As several hon. Members have mentioned, there is no doubt that recommendation (b) goes to the heart of the matter. It has been quoted already. I merely remind the House that it states clearly that it should be the head of national statistics or any statistical commission who decides what is included in the national statistics and hence what is subject to the rigours of the new commission.
The White Paper has been much discussed in the debate so far. It is headed "Building Trust in Statistics". It was introduced with great acclaim by the Government.


The Economic Secretary told the world in her press release:
This White Paper marks a new era for official statistics.
I am bound to say that I am not a great believer in Government hype, whatever Government are in power. I am afraid to say that this Government have been rather better at Government hype than most in our history, but hype is least appropriate when it is least true. I accept the infinite delicacy of the comments of Government Members in attacking the White Paper. Labour Members have been careful to avoid outright attack, and I understand entirely that I should do the same in their position. But the mood of the House this evening has shown clearly that the Royal Statistical Society, to which the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) referred, was right.
The White Paper does not mark a new era for official statistics. It is perhaps at best the beginning of an idea of what, later, if put in legislative form and much enhanced in various ways, might be a somewhat better way of arranging official statistics. I admit that that does not quite carry the same soundbite characteristics as
a new era for official statistics",
but it is alas the truth. It is the truth not least because, as various hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd), have said, the crucial recommendation (b)—that the decision about what goes into national statistics should be independently made—is precisely the one that is by implication turned down in the White Paper.
We have to attend to just how much of a problem there is here. The Chairman of the Select Committee, who carries some weight in the matter, said that there was some ambiguity about who would decide what went in and what stayed out. I rather agree with the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. I do not think that there is any ambiguity. The Select Committee talked in terms of decision, but section 2.10 of the White Paper on page 5 makes it clear that the new commission will
advise on the scope of National Statistics".
As if that left any ambiguity—I suppose that it might be argued that the phrase by itself was ambiguous—the White Paper says in section 4.5 on page 13:
The Government will ask the Statistics Commission to keep under review the scope of national statistics and make periodic recommendations"—
again, in advisory mode—and
 … Ministers will decide".
I think that it is pretty clear that we are dealing not with an independent body that will decide what things it vets but with a wonderful combination of Ministers. The Minister is undoubtedly a human being and hence probably prey to the temptations to which we are all subject. That certainly applies to all of us on the Opposition Front Bench. How convenient not to admit into the fold of national statistics any series of statistics that may be dubious because of the character of the collection.
Collection is a difficult matter. Economic judgments, as many hon. Members have said, often depend on judgments about how accurate statistics really are. However, any Minister may also wish to conceal a series that is politically embarrassing.
I wish I could say that, from my own experience of working in a bureaucracy, I had any confidence that our civil service would always provide a bastion sufficient against that temptation. However, I fear that the structure of our government makes it systematically unlikely that the civil service will do so. On the whole, civil servants are entirely decent people trying to do a good job, but the job that they are asked to do is to serve the Government of the day—not Parliament and not the electorate. It becomes extraordinarily difficult for them to resist a Minister who finds it inconvenient to have a particular piece of information released.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House who have any experience of government—most of them have vastly more such experience than I have—will know what I am talking about when I say that one cannot rely on the home Departments to vet their own statistics. That was the conclusion reached by the Sub-Committee and that was very clear and right. It is extremely to be deplored that the White Paper says nothing as to how we can avoid that problem in the future. That is what the Royal Statistical Society is on about.
It is also relevant to remind ourselves of which sort of statistics are involved. Some of them have already been mentioned this evening: waiting lists and crime statistics—and police numbers, which are so topical. However, the most interesting question of all relates to those statistics that never appear. I feel morally confident—I am absolutely sure that the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice), the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, who, in a previous incarnation, played a distinguished role as the Opposition spokesman on education, would echo what I say—that buried somewhere in the Department for Education and Employment are fairly large numbers of surveys and a fair number of statistics as to how effective or ineffective the new deal is turning out, and that they have not been revealed. I say that because it was always the practice of the DfEE and its predecessors not to reveal surveys and statistics that they did not find convenient. I am sure that Ministers have sought to inform themselves as to those matters and have revealed—perfectly honestly—those things that they think are convenient, and have concealed those things that they think are inconvenient. That is not the way to convey to an electorate or to Parliament a proper picture. It is not special to this Government; it has been true of Governments for ages past. Now there is an opportunity to change it by consensus. The Select Committee has given us that opportunity; the White Paper should be rewritten to give it to us properly.
We turn to the home Department that is the most important; that is what I want to add to the debate. That Department is of course the Treasury—Her Majesty's Treasury—the august body that is the subject of the Select Committee's whole endeavour and which produced this splendid, or not so splendid, White Paper, and which is responsible for enormously important statistics.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham has already referred to the inflation figures. I restate the point that I made in an intervention to him; if there is a single set of exogenous statistics that matter most, it is the inflation statistics. Those statistics are not merely a piece of information; they are an operator. As the Chancellor has chosen to set the targets of the Monetary Policy Committee in a series of statistics, the choice of the series itself and the governing of the way in which that series is


compiled are matters that quite directly affect policy as well as information. Clearly, that is intolerable. It is not possible for a Chancellor of the Exchequer honestly to claim that he has subcontracted the control of monetary policy to another body under a clear and transparent target, if the target is in fact not clear and transparent, but opaque, and run by his own officials in ways that he does not declare.
I admit that, in principle, the national statistician could come along and say, "But Chancellor, I do not really believe you, I should like to see exactly how this is made up". Earlier, we heard an exchange on that matter. However, the poor old national statistician—be he ever so distinguished a statistician, as I hope and believe that he will be—will not stand much chance against a Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Chief Secretary, a Financial Secretary, an Economic Secretary, a Paymaster General, a Permanent Secretary and a head of the economic service, all of whom tell him, "We don't really think you ought to have this".
I do not speculate in this matter—or if I do so, it is based on recent experience—because, in dealing with certain matters to which I am about to turn, I asked whether I could go to see Professor Likierman, the head of the financial management, reporting and audit service to ask him some questions. First, a record of my telephoned request was lost. Secondly, it transpired that we had to send a request by fax, so I did so. It then transpired that my request could not be answered, but had to be referred to the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was referred to that office and a long delay ensued. We were then informed that I could not see Professor Likierman about the national accounts, because I could only do so if a Minister was present and it was not felt that a Minister should be present.

Mr. Radice: I can remember a similar occasion when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power and I wanted to see the chief inspector of the then HMI. I was told that I could not do so unless the Secretary of State for Education was also present—he was Sir Keith Joseph. I thought that that was not appropriate, so I arranged to meet the chief inspector at a party.

Mr. Letwin: I admire the right hon. Gentleman's ingenuity. I may adopt the same tactic, although my social sphere is not yet as elevated as his. Indeed, my point is not about the Government; it is not a party political point. The truth is that all Governments have an institutional tendency to conceal. I fear that there will not be much chance for that ever-so-distinguished chap to break through that veil.

Mr. Cousins: I have already expressed myself on the substance of the point that the hon. Gentleman makes; I agree with him. None the less, we should record that neither the Sub-Committee in its investigations of the Office for National Statistics, nor the main Committee, when it considered resource accounting and budgeting—we shall come back to that—found a shred of evidence that the Chancellor and the Government had exercised the kind of influence to which the hon. Gentleman refers and which he rightly fears.

Mr. Letwin: I am terribly grateful to the hon. Gentleman because he moves me on to precisely the topic

that I now address: the belief—at least on our part—that there is some evidence of that problem, in respect not of exogenous statistics, but of the most important statistics of all, which are those under the Government's operational control. I refer to the national accounts.
if there is one set of statistics that matters most, it is those that relate to the fiscal balance. Alas, that is also the area in which there is the greatest scope for any Government to engage in subterfuge. I have to say that the present Chancellor and his colleagues have raised that subterfuge to a fine art. We are dealing with a sort of Mr. Mephistopheles, who has managed to conjure the most extraordinary results from the brilliantly illuminating 189-page document that is the Red Book. One of the nation's leading experts told me that for years he had felt that he knew little about life, but he knew one thing: how to make sense of the national accounts at last—until the Red Book and its predecessor of the previous year appeared on the scene. At that point he more or less gave up.
Why is that? Some of those matters must be conscious, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer is an extremely intelligent man, with a bright set of officials and colleagues who work with him. It cannot be an unconscious act that the working families tax credit—billions of pounds of public expenditure on any normal definition—has famously disappeared into an accounting adjustment. If it is unconscious, I suppose that is a resigning matter, but I do not believe that for a moment. It was a conscious adjustment—an adjustment of an adjustment, so to speak—in order to make us wholly unaware of what was going on, except that it was so obvious that most people caught up with it eventually. It did take a couple of days after the production of the Red Book, but eventually people caught up with it.
Alas, as one goes through the whole document, one finds dizzyingly many minor examples of misleading or ambiguous arrangements of statistics, which make it extraordinarily difficult for someone trained in ordinary accounts or finance to penetrate the document. Some of those may be the result of error, some may be unconscious and some may be conscious—I genuinely do not know which is which. We struggled mightily to find out but, not least because of our failure to meet Professor Likierman, we have been unable to do so.

Mr. Cousins: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that how to present the working families tax credit is an interesting problem: should it be presented as expenditure, or in some other way? He should give the Government some credit. The way in which the presentation used was arrived at is comprehensively set out in the Red Book, and further documents were produced to reinforce the presentation in that document. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to disagree with that presentation, but it is undeniable that the Government have made it entirely clear how the presentation of the working families tax credit in the national accounts was arrived at.

Mr. Letwin: In a way, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, in that if one reads all the fine print, one can eventually work out what has happened. I also agree that how to deal with the tax credit—indeed, with tax credits in general—is an interesting question: are they expenditure or negative income? There is no case for calling them an accounting adjustment; the only reason


for doing so was to ensure that we did not notice for a little while. That is not a good way to present such matters.
Let me move on to some other examples. Table B27 in the Red Book registers the current budget surplus as 0.5 per cent. of gross domestic product. Yet, in table B25, something ostensibly similar called surplus on current budget is labelled as £6.2 billion. Those are both 1998–99 figures. With GDP at rather less than £900 billion, it is extraordinary difficult for the ordinary man to make those two figures match. There might be a perfectly good explanation for that, but as the Red Book does not provide it and one cannot meet the man who drew up the figures, it is difficult to tell what it is, which is probably why the press does not have the slightest idea what has happened. I rang a couple of expert commentators, who told me that I had a good point and that they could not work it out either.
The question is not merely one of figures and principles of accounting; we are dealing with a sort of definitional glory. I have never seen so many definitions as have been produced, changed and reproduced over the past couple of years. We have current expenditure, net capital expenditure—although of what it is net is an interesting question in itself—and general Government expenditure. Then, we have total managed expenditure, which is not to be confused with annually managed expenditure or with net departmental outlays, which a common man might have thought bore some relationship to it. We have net borrowing, which is quite different from net cash requirement and from the surplus or deficit on the current budget. Most mysterious of all, we have other financial transactions, which are wholly different from miscellaneous financial transactions.
I could bore the House by going on for another 20 minutes with other definitions, but I shall please the House by not doing so. The fact is that it would all be a joke—if it were not so serious. What makes it serious is that a 189-page document—which is 186 pages longer than a set of company accounts, containing straightforward profit and loss, balance sheet and cashflow figures—has been produced, partly in an effort to inform and partly in an effort to conceal and obfuscate. Nobody has the slightest idea which component of the item in question is generated by which of the two motives, and I strongly believe that it will not be long before the Treasury itself loses sight of the distinction.
In the end, it will be the Government—and, of course, those who elected them—who will suffer from not understanding their own rhetoric expressed in their own statistics. That is the very fate that befell regime after regime in circumstances in which there was not the same degree of public accountability as we in a democracy are used to. It became genuinely impossible for decent people trying to run a country such as Czechoslovakia to understand their own accounts, because they had been so concocted that those who concocted them had lost sight of the motives and techniques of concoction. That is a fate to which we have not yet succumbed, and we must never succumb to it.

Mr. Cousins: We have been having a most interesting debate within the debate. The hon. Gentleman offers the example of Czechoslovakia—I do not know whether that

is intended to upset us. One of the interesting features of the former communist regimes in eastern Europe is that they drew no distinction between capital and revenue, but neither did British public sector accounts until the innovations made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Those are the very innovations which the hon. Gentleman criticises, and he makes heavy weather of the resulting difficulty in presentational terms. However, does he disagree that the current Government were entirely right to bring about a long overdue revolution in British public accounts by introducing a distinction between capital and revenue, which all of us—every enterprise, company and household—make as a matter of daily routine?

Mr. Letwin: No, I do not disagree at all. It is entirely right that the resource accounting process, which began under the previous Government and has admirably been continued under the current Government, along with the national asset register, the effort to create some principles, including the fundamental underlying principles of the golden rule, and the distinction between capital and current, are all common currency—I should not say that—and are all commonly accepted on both sides of the House. That is not the issue. The issue is whether the methods of presentation are such as to make matters clear, or to keep matters obscure. I maintain that they are not such as to make matters clear.
The remedy is to have an independent body, statutorily established, that creates firm and clear definitions, just as the accountancy profession has, for hundreds of years—since the 13th century—in one way or another established definitions for private sector business. That is the appropriate way to set the standards for fiscal accounting. I do not claim perfection for previous Governments of either party. The situation is not unique—we have merely reached a pinnacle of obfuscations during the current Government's tenure—but there has been a lacuna for many years and it needs to be resolved.
Alas, the concern of the Sub-Committee was not with that matter. Even more regrettable is the fact that the White Paper says nothing about it. I hope that the Select Committee will continue its good work—[Interruption.] Notwithstanding the sedentary remarks of the right hon. Member for North Durham, I have read what the Committee has so far produced and I accept that it is moving in the right direction. However, I do not accept for a moment that the Government have shown the least sign of moving in the right direction.
The Government should strengthen the statistics commission and the role of the national statistician and increase the rights and powers of those bodies to ensure that matters that they think should be documented in certain ways, not things which Ministers think should be documented, are so documented. The Government should also establish an independent commission that will govern the definitions and principles of national accounting, so that we are never again faced with an incomprehensible 189-page set of statistics that diminish democracy and the ability of Government to govern.

Sir Michael Spicer: I think that it was Disraeli who coined the aphorism:
lies, damned lies and statistics.
Much of today's debate has underscored the political warning implicit in that statement. Disraeli would have enjoyed the fact that the first subject debated in the


spillover Session is statistics, although that probably has more to do with lack of demand from other quarters than with any obsession with statistics on the part of the business managers. However, there is no doubt that statistics deserve Parliament's close attention, for at least two reasons that have already been touched on.
First, statistics are often—not always—useful props to Government propaganda, and sometimes they are of critical importance. Examples have been quoted by hon. Members on both sides of the House of the way in which unemployment, health and education statistics have been presented. Such statistics have formed part of the propaganda of Governments from both sides. Secondly, statistics sometimes—but not always—play a vital role in the formation of policy. Some examples have been given this evening, the most obvious current example being the retail prices index and the average wages index and their effect on the interest rate policy of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee. I shall come in a moment to other examples, including European trade statistics and statistical decisions that might or might not be made about the single currency, which can have policy implications.
As has been said, a national statistical service has two requirements. First, it should be independent and, secondly, it should be open—especially when matters are subjective and when the methodology upon which the statistics are based is changing.
The report of the Treasury Sub-Committee—I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd) and his colleagues on their achievements—states clearly that neither independence nor openness apply fully to national statistics in general or to the Office for National Statistics in particular. Several relevant examples have been given in this debate.
On the question of independence, the RPI—which is crucial to policy determination and propaganda—remains within the power and gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The report's recommendation (b) addresses that issue in particular.
As to openness, the report documents fully the average earnings debacle. It is a nice coincidence that we are debating this issue on the day that the average earnings index has apparently reached 4.9 per cent., which was the same figure cited in June 1998. That was an overstatement and the real figure was apparently much lower. The report states clearly that there has been no openness in describing national statistics in a way that the public can understand.
The real question that we are debating tonight is what will happen as a result of the Treasury Committee report, the publication of the White Paper and this debate. The omens are not good. The White Paper—which is, perhaps significantly, black rather than white—was produced yesterday without any real notice. I am told that Treasury Committee staff did not know about the imminent publication of the paper until fairly late on Friday. That is quite extraordinary, especially given that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues had worked on the paper for a year. I am told that the document was produced at a press conference at which journalists were controlled unusually tightly: only six journalists were permitted to attend and they were allowed to ask questions for only 10 minutes. So much for open government and so much for the aspirations of the black paper.
At the beginning of the paper, the Prime Minister says:
In the consultation document 'Statistics: A Matter of Trust', the Government emphasised its intention to seek a new relationship with citizens based on openness and trust. I believe that having access to official statistics which we can all trust is essential in any healthy society.
On the facing page, the Economic Secretary begins her contribution by saying:
The Government is committed to establishing public confidence in official statistics.
A nice photograph of the hon. Lady accompanies those comments. She may not have had much of a chance to influence policy decisions, but there was obviously time to print her picture—which is rather better than the slightly indifferent photograph of the Prime Minister that appears on the other page. The aspirations in the Economic Secretary's comments and throughout the black paper do not square with the way in which the paper was produced.
As to openness, the fundamental point that has been made in this debate is that vital statistics—the RPI and information about hospital waiting lists and educational performance, for instance—remain under direct ministerial control. That is contrary to the basic proposition advanced by the Treasury Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) pointed out clearly that the pivotal point in the Select Committee's recommendations has been refused. Therefore, there is no question—as the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), said—that the White Paper flies in the face of the Select Committee's recommendations. Not only was it produced at the last moment in a manner that was pretty discourteous to all those involved, but, in essence, it contradicts the main recommendations of the Select Committee.
As to the future of the ONS and the way in which it operates, nothing seems to have changed since the average earnings debacle. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said that he was tossing a new thought into the proceedings and I shall toss a new piece of information to the House about openness and the way in which the ONS explains its statistics. I refer to correspondence initiated by my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch this summer on the question of European trade statistics. He wrote to Dr. Holt about those trade statistics on 14 September and, in essence, said:
When … the 1999 Pink Book is compared with … Economic Trends in December 1998, it becomes apparent that very substantial re-allocations have been made between countries.
He then instances this case and states:
Income in respect of EU '14': it appears that Credits have been increased (compared with the figure given in December 1998 Economic Trends); while Debits have been decreased, resulting in a 'swing' in aggregated Balances over that period of £37.6 billion … In other words, the 'picture' suggested in the December 1998 Economic Trends breakdown, of the UK having a more-or-less structural 'Income' deficit with the rest of the EU … now turns out … not to have been the case. The new Pink Book appears to indicate the opposite: that the UK has an on-going 'Income' surplus with the EU".
That is quite important information. Dr. Holt replied to that letter on 4 October, and said:
Dear Lord Pearson"—


I shall quote key extracts from the letter—
First, let me say that estimating portfolio investment and associated income flows across international boundaries is one of the most difficult parts of national accounting statistics … The statistics we publish are therefore subject to wider margins of error than most of our other statistics.
This problem is not confined to the UK. Other countries face the same difficulties. Indeed, it has been a matter for international discussion for many years. In 1992, a committee under the auspices of the IMF felt that to address the problem there should be a survey … The results of this survey, although only partial thus far, are the cause of much of the revision you refer to in your letter.
The fact that the IMF has sponsored an international survey on those statistics is revealed, and some rather complicated arguments ensue. That disclosure was prompted by a letter; none of the information was forthcoming when the statistics were produced—even though they are profoundly important when making policy decisions.
For instance, policies towards monetary union and the single currency may hang to some extent on such trade statistics. To come out blandly with figures on trade flows for one year that say the opposite to what was shown for the previous year, and then—only when prompted—to add that all the statistics are very subjective and difficult, and moreover are subject to international surveys, IMF reports and so on, does not square with the objective of openness.
The Committee has been nosing around those matters for a whole year now, and the ONS and its head must have known that questions would be asked about openness, and about describing what the methodologies were, and when they were required. There have certainly been definitive questions about subjective judgments. All those ideas have been floating around, and have been the subject of intense questioning by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and his colleagues on the Committee. What is so difficult to understand is that, even this summer—this month, indeed—we have still heard examples of bland assurances and remarks that prove that the need of people outside to know and understand why statistics have been produced in a particular form is not taken seriously. All that seems to continue, despite the work that my right hon. Friend and others have done.
The obscurantism is profound; the latest information that one can glean suggests that it is still there. The problem needs to be addressed, yet I understand that Dr. Holt is to leave his job before Christmas, and no replacement has yet been made.
The White Paper says that there will be a statistics commission. I hope that colleagues both on the Committee as a whole and on the Sub-Committee will take a strong interest in that prospect, because this cannot be the end of the matter. We now have the White Paper, but it has denied the essence of what the Committee wanted. It would seem that the people producing the statistics are still carrying on with their bad old ways. For all the reasons that have been given in the debate, we must continue to watch the matter carefully, and I hope that we shall do so.

Mrs. Caroline Spelman: I add my congratulations to those of my colleagues to the new Economic Secretary to the Treasury. May I reassure her

that we are in no doubt that she is a human being? I also congratulate the Committee on its excellent report, which recognises the growing role of statistics in the political process.
Nowhere is that more true than in health, the subject on which I speak, and which I would like to draw into the debate. Statistics are critical in measuring performance, determining the allocation of resources and setting policy targets—all uses of statistics that were singled out by the Select Committee.
A Government's performance on health is seen as a barometer of their overall success or failure, so the use of statistics to demonstrate relative success or failure will have an important effect on the future electoral chances of any Government. I therefore argue strongly the case for health statistics to be taken into the ambit of the Office for National Statistics.
As we know, the ONS does not collect centrally data on health or expenditure on health. As a relatively new politician, I say that there is a need for independent collation of statistics, so as to allow more objective assessment. There are many areas in which the Department of Health does not publish national data, despite the fact that we are talking about a national health service. As a former member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, I inquired about the booking system for the maternity services required at the time of the new millennium, and the crisis that we may face at the end of the year. When I asked about the additional number of bookings for women due to have babies at the time of the date change, I was told that the information was not available centrally.
I found that frustrating in my work, because I was trying to assess whether there had been a rapid increase in demand for maternity services at that time, and to assess the sort of provision that had been made in our national health service.
Many other important health statistics are not collected centrally. So as to be even-handed, and in case my point about the lack of centrally collected data might appear partisan, I did a little research on questions asked by Members from other parties.
The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) asked a question about MRSA. I shall not attempt to pronounce the full version of that term, but it is a drug-resistant infection by the staphylococcus bacterium. When the hon. Gentleman asked for the basic statistical information about the number of infections by that bacterium, the response was:
there are no centrally held statistics on deaths from this cause."—[Official Report, 5 May 1998; Vol. 311, c. 352.]
That would have frustrated him in his work as a Member of the House in trying to get to the bottom of the subject.
Another important national issue is the high rate of abortions in this country, about which questions have been asked by Members in all parts of the House. Specifically, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) wanted to know the cost to the national health service of abortions carried out in the first trimester. She received the same sort of reply—that the information requested was not centrally collected. That is another example of an important area of the national health service's responsibility in which it is difficult for Members of Parliament to carry out their work and make assessments based on nationally collected data.
Another important question—indeed, it was raised by the Opposition during Health questions today—is the rise in the instance of autism, and whether there is any correlation between that and the introduction of the triple vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella. The hon. Member for Warrington, South (Ms Southworth) once asked how many health authorities held a database with detailed information about how many people had autism. Again, she received the dry reply:
The information requested is not held centrally."—[Official Report, 9 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 539.]
All those examples show how difficult it is for Parliament and parliamentarians, whether they are on the Government or the Opposition side, to carry out their work when data concerning our national health service are not centrally collected.
As several hon. Members have said, statistics about patients waiting for treatment in the national health service have become something of a political football. In that regard, the trust in statistical information that has been mentioned has been called into question. There is a huge temptation for Governments to manipulate statistics to meet political targets.
In closely examining the use of waiting lists, we have discovered that not a little use of smoke and mirrors is being practised. It transpires that there are main waiting lists, subsidiary waiting lists and lists of people who are not on any lists at all. Only the main list counts, and it concerns the time that somebody waits between seeing a specialist and getting treatment.
The officially collected statistics on the waiting list of patients in the national health service take no account of the number of people who are waiting to get on the waiting list. According to the Government's own statistics, that number is about 190,000, which is an increase of 140,000 since they came to power. That staggering increase in the number of out-patients who are waiting to get on to the list has arisen as a direct result of the Government's attempts to reduce the main waiting list. It creates great confusion for people who are waiting for treatment and whose experience does not match the vaunted claims about falling waiting lists.
There has been a policy of removing certain patients from the list, and that has been done by creating a subsidiary list. There are several examples of that practice around the country, but I shall just use one of them, which is sufficient to make my point. A memorandum from the Bradford Hospitals NHS trust states:
Following new NHS guidelines, patients on waiting lists for operations to remove metalwork are not to be included in the monthly returns. To enable us to identify patients more easily, a new list '05' has been set up.
One wonders what list 05 is. One thing is for certain, it does not appear in the headline figure for the waiting list of patients by which the Government invite the electorate to judge their performance. That causes me considerable disquiet as a parliamentarian, because the people on the 05 list have disappeared from the national statistics that we have received from the Government and that have been used as a measure of their performance.
Certain operations are being collated on an alternative list, which does not count in the overall tally. It is significant that this ruse started in June 1998, which was the month when the numbers on the main list supposedly began to fall.
We are also beginning to see the use of time-efficient operations—as opposed to more complex operations—to manipulate the figures. The trouble is that, if the target is to reduce statistically the number of patients on the list, that will have a huge impact on clinical priorities. It is a fact that to reduce the numbers on the main waiting list, there has had to be an increase in the number of minor conditions that are treated. If all cases of in-growing toenails are treated quickly, that will reduce the size of the list, whereas if the operations that are carried out are for cardiac by-passes, which take longer, are more expensive and reduce the budget, the wait will be much longer. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd) pointed out that this use of statistics distorts priorities for health care. Not only do we deplore that, but, in the decision of the new Secretary of State for Health to have what he called a change of tack and to put fresh emphasis on the treatment of cancer and heart disease, we detect a recognition on his part that clinical priorities have been distorted by attempts to reduce the waiting list statistically.

Mr. Desmond Swayne: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not only clinical priorities that have been distorted, but the figures for NHS personnel? Will she comment on the British Medical Association's discovery yesterday that the announced additional 400 consultants are already in the system?

Mrs. Spelman: I was going to come to that, because it is another example of the "Jack Straw style of creative accounting" to show the number of people working in a public service.
The statistical debate on waiting lists has obscured the facts about how long people are actually waiting. That is all that matters to a patient. They do not want to know how many people are in front of them or behind them on the waiting list: they want to know how long it will take. It is hard for an ordinary person to get that information. That is yet another case for having health data collected, collated and published through the Office for National Statistics.
There has been a large increase in the number of people waiting more than a year to be seen. The figure is up from 30,000 to 48,300 since the election, which is an increase of 61 per cent. in two years. During the past two years, the number of patients waiting to be seen after being referred to a specialist has also increased.
MPs have recourse to the House of Commons Library and, if requested by our constituents, we can obtain information. In March 1999, in response to a request from a constituent, I asked the Library about the number of people waiting more than 13 weeks for treatment. The figure given to me was 248,000. By June 1999, that figure had risen to 485,000, so between March 1999 and June 1999 there was an increase of 84 per cent. That statistic shows what happens when clinical priorities are distorted so as to produce a reduction in the headline figure for the main waiting list.
The House of Commons Library has also given me the figure for the number of patients still waiting for more than 13 weeks. The number of people who have waited 13 weeks or more has increased by 115 per cent. The average waiting time is a more useful statistical measure of the performance of the national health service,


and closer to people's experience of treatment under the NHS. The average waiting time between being referred to, and being seen by, a specialist has gone up from six to seven weeks. Without an independent official statistical source, it is difficult to get such information into the public domain.
Although the Government have said today that, with only 30,000 to go, they are on target to meet their promised reduction in the in-patient waiting list, the number of people on the out-patient waiting list is steadily increasing. It will be easy for the Government to achieve their target and to pronounce that their early election pledge has been fulfilled, but it will not reflect the true position or people's real experience of having to wait longer to be seen and, on average, to be treated.
Other statistics for the health service have been quoted, such as the 400 extra specialists. The new Secretary of State was quoted in The Guardian as saying that they were extra resources, but only a day later that was denied by the BMA. In fact, those specialists are already training in the system. The correction of such information by the profession concerned does nothing to build trust in the use of statistics by Departments.
The use of statistics in a misleading way can undermine trust. The new Secretary of State announced that the £15 million was new money, but it is not new money: it is part of the £21 billion allocated to the health service in the spending review that was announced by his predecessor. The money is new only in the sense that it will not be borrowed from other NHS departments. That nuance is lost on the public. When it becomes the subject of a debate about the truth of the matter, public confidence in the initial statements is undermined.
I want to make a strong case for the inclusion of health statistics in the remit of a reformed Office for National Statistics, rather than leaving their publication to the Home Department. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) said that the collection of statistics should be free from political interference. Nowhere is that more true than in the health service.
I could not agree more with the recommendation that the decision about which data the ONS ought to publish should lie with a statistician outside Government. A cursory reading of the White—or black—Paper led me to identify only one item that troubled me greatly. I read very clearly that it was the Minister who would decide, and that leaves me dissatisfied. I fear that insufficient independence will be involved in the remit for data collection—in decisions about what should be collected, and about how it should be published—if the final decision rests with the Minister. I fear that the temptation will be too great for the Home Department to restrict access to information which, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) pointed out, could prove inconvenient to Government if it came out.
For that reason, although we wholly endorse the Government's pursuit of a method of collecting statistical information that will build trust, we are anxious to hear the Minister's latest thinking, in the hope that it will give us a degree more assurance than the White Paper gives us that the long arm of Government can be kept well clear of the collection of information that must be accurate,

accessible and reliable if ordinary people are to be able to assess properly the performance of a Government and the public services within their care.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Melanie Johnson): I thank all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have welcomed me to my new post and given me their kind good wishes. I also thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) for his hesitation on the question of my humanity, which was welcome. I note that he did not agree with the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), who clearly thinks that I am human—another example of the Opposition's failure to arrive at a common policy.

Mr. Letwin: I am sorry to interrupt, but I do not want anyone who was not present earlier to be in the slightest doubt when they read Hansard. I fully recognise the Minister's humanity.

Miss Johnson: I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman's response, but I realise that he had to make up for his earlier comments about a common currency, and that he is very much on message now.
I thank the Treasury Committee and its Chairman, and the Sub-Committee and its Chairman, for producing the report and providing the subject of today's debate. I am delighted to be able to announce that yesterday we published a White Paper entitled "Building Trust in Statistics", although I am sorry that the timing has caused consternation to some. We can now deliver—and are delivering—on yet another of the Government's manifesto commitments: the transparency of the arrangements included in the White Paper will further our aim of making government more open.
The then Economic Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), launched the process at the beginning of last year, when we published our Green Paper "Statistics: A Matter of Trust". The Green Paper stimulated a wide-ranging debate about how we should proceed, and the White Paper is very much a result of that. Following our consultations, we have decided that the best way in which to secure the independence of the statistical service is to create a statistics commission, which will be independent of the users and the producers of statistics. It is worth noting that that is what 70 per cent. or more of respondents to the consultation requested, in the context of independence and accountability. A number of Members on both sides of the House asked about that.
The commission will report to Parliament annually, if that is Parliament's wish, which will create a very different environment. It will play a key role in strengthening quality control of official statistics, ensuring that they are trustworthy and that they respond to users' needs. The overriding aim is to establish public confidence in official statistics. Not all members of the commission will necessarily be statisticians; users may also be represented.
A good deal of time was rightly spent on the question of appointing a national statistician. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) spoke of the importance of the calibre and authority of such an individual—and, indeed, we want to appoint someone of


international calibre, given that that person will bring about a key development in terms of the transparency and accountability of national statistics in the future. We see that as a major professional responsibility.
The White Paper also sets out the roles and responsibilities of Ministers, of the commission and of the national statistician, and—as I have said—suggests that Parliament may wish to consider how it deals with questions relating to national statistics in the future. In response to comments made by the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd), let me also say that we consider this to be one of the ways in which we can involve leadership in the process.
The Office for National Statistics is and always will be at the heart of national statistics in this country. Today's debate has raised many of the points discussed in the recommendations of the Sub-Committee's report; the White Paper meets those recommendations, and goes even further by providing a sound base for the delivery of public confidence in our official statistics.

Mr. Letwin: I thank the Minister for giving way again. She said that the White Paper had "met the recommendations" of the Select Committee. Is she asserting that recommendation (b)—that the national statistician, rather than the Government, should decide which statistics are governed by the new commission—has been met by her White Paper?

Miss Johnson: I would prefer to come on to my answers to that point later. I am trying to weave into my speech the many points that have been made during the debate, as well as addressing other points that remain to be addressed.
The new arrangements reflect the strong consensus that emerged from the consultation exercise. Those arrangements will deliver quality-assured statistics of integrity and relevance. They will be implemented on a non-statutory basis to secure the benefits as soon as possible. It is important for me to emphasise that that is one of the reasons for implementing them on a non-statutory basis at this stage. As is clearly explained in the White Paper, however, that matter will be the subject of further consideration by the new statistics commission. We do not rule out legislation, but we hope that it will not prove necessary.
I am conscious that the debate was probably prompted in part by the average earnings index scrutinies which exposed some shortcomings on the part of the ONS. Several lessons can be learned from the scrutinies, and I assure hon. Members that they have, indeed, been learned. Indeed, they can go a long way to promoting future success and countering complacency. A major lesson is that, no matter how highly its products are regarded, there will always be room for the ONS to improve, to innovate and to examine its statistical procedures. It is doing just that, and some of the procedures that are now in place result from the average earnings index scrutinies.
The ONS has a long-standing continuous programme of improvement, and is now doing, and will continue to do, even more. For example, many changes were made to the AEI before its relaunch. Many of the issues that were raised in the Turnbull and King report were addressed before the relaunch of the index. Those changes are critical as they will deliver quality more widely across Government statistics.
To my grief, several hon. Members have given the impression that there is something suspect about some ONS statistics. Statistics that are produced by the ONS are already of high quality. We aspire to even greater quality, but the ONS already offers a sound base for many of the decisions that are made in government.
We have published the efficiency review—of which many hon. Members are aware—and both reviews of AEI in response to the Committee's recommendations. Last December, my immediate predecessor as Economic Secretary wrote to the Committee to give details of the timing and responsibility of the AEI work. That is all in the public domain.
As I have said, the ONS is well regarded internationally. It produces timely, relevant data of high quality: the national accounts that it produces are equal to the best produced by our European partners. For a long time, the ONS has been regarded as an inward-looking organisation. That is all changing: today the ONS makes more extensive use of external expertise from universities and elsewhere. That will ensure that any improvements include best practice methodology.
To respond to user needs, which are continuously changing, an organisation needs to be flexible and attuned to those needs. It needs to prioritise continually. Therefore, the ONS is developing a comprehensive system to assess the views of users; the value of statistics in policy making; and the contribution of statistics to the economy and society. That addresses generally some of the points that the hon. Member for Meriden made. It will ensure that the ONS gets its priorities right, and that they stay right.
As I said, in terms of legislation, we took the view that implementing the new arrangements was the priority, but it is worth pointing out that several concordats and service-level agreements are already in place with regard to the future work of the ONS. The service-level agreement with the Bank of England has already been completed and signed.

Mr. Cousins: Can the Minister confirm that the statistical commission will have full access to those service-level agreements and concordats with the devolved Parliaments, and that it will review them, maintain their integrity and report on their significance, unencumbered by any difficulty in getting Treasury Ministers' approval to do so?

Miss Johnson: The arrangements on devolution are that we have service-level agreements with the devolved Administrations. The ONS in any case has direct responsibility for Wales. However, as envisaged by the working party and in the memorandum of understanding to which my hon. Friend referred, we anticipate that arrangements will be made to protect the integrity of national statistics and to enable the devolved Administrations to receive the figures that they require to work on a devolved basis. The ONS hopes that, as a result of all that, customers and users will be able to be involved in prioritising and in the quality-assurance process.
We share the Committee's view that high-quality official statistics would be improved by increased timeliness and accessibility. It is widely accepted that the vast range of statistics produced by the ONS is extensively used by Government and the public alike: indeed, it is important that there should be a wide range of users.
Statistics give us a picture of the fabric of the nation, and inform policy decisions both inside and outside Government. That is one reason why a review of release practices is under way at the ONS. and will be published shortly, but the ONS has already made much progress in getting its first releases available on the world wide web. All first releases appear on the ONS website within five minutes of release, and the office is looking to improve the arrangements for the remaining releases.
Several of the Committee's recommendations proposed changes in ONS's internal arrangements to improve management and research capabilities, and the White Paper addresses the workability of ONS management arrangements to secure those objectives; the lack of strategic vision in some aspects of past ONS work; and the need for strong leadership. In particular, the White Paper stresses the need to strengthen management at the ONS to give much greater emphasis to quality issues. Several hon. Members have recognised the importance of that particular dimension of change. Following the efficiency review and scrutiny of the average earnings index, the Government have accepted proposals from the ONS director to strengthen the senior management structure.
The new management includes new directors of economic and social statistics, who will promote a more coherent set of national statistics not just within the ONS but across national statistics generally. That will help to plug gaps in coherence and coverage across government as a whole.
Quality control of national statistics and the research capabilities of the Government statistical service in general need to be beefed up. That was clear from the AEI review and the Committee's recommendations, so we are creating a new director of methodology and quality post at a senior level.
The right hon. Member for Fareham referred to the way in which the ONS considered criteria for determining priorities. I should make it clear that the plan is that a guide should be developed that explains the process and the factors involved in the consideration of priorities. That will build on the existing method, whereby pressures—for example, from new users—are balanced against resources for planning. That is an important element of the way in which we proceed in deciding which statistics are to be developed and paid for, and which we regard as not important in terms of overall information.
The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) asked for a commitment that there would be consultation on the framework document. We have had a long consultation period and the whole process, including publication of the White Paper yesterday and the debate today, has been long drawn out, as hon. Members have commented. We now want to move forward as quickly as we can. The hon. Gentleman's wishes might be reasonable in an ideal world, but at this point we want to get on and implement the new system.

Mr. Edward Davey: Does the Minister realise that I was passing on a question to the Government from the president of the Royal Statistical Society? Is she not disturbed that the president is disappointed at the Government's White Paper and believes that they should

accept the Select Committee's recommendation (b) that the statistics commission, not Ministers, should decide on the scope of the statistics to be covered?

Miss Johnson: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will come shortly to the question of the scope of the statistics, but if we go through a further consultation, which—with all due respect to the Royal Statistical Society—would have to include other organisations, we will have a much more elongated process. In that case, I imagine that hon. Members would wish to grill me at some future date about why we had not made more progress.
On the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) on access by the director, or the national statistician, to the Prime Minister, the Government agree that access to the Prime Minister on integrity matters is important. That is why we have maintained it in the White Paper.
The ONS is responsible for statistics arising from the registration of births and deaths. Those statistics result in the calculation of death and infant mortality rates, which are used to monitor policy and to allocate resources. The statistics also include the cause of death—such as cancer or heart disease—the number of abortions and teenage pregnancies, and cancer rates and survival rates.

Mrs. Spelman: As I said in my question on MRSA, data collection methods do not recognise the category of death. Therefore, although the number of deaths may be collated, the statistics will tell us nothing about the trend in different categories of death.

Miss Johnson: Perhaps I can best deal with the hon. Lady's point by elaborating on some of the other points that I should like to make.
Currently, there is not a very clear distinction between national, Government statistical service and departmental statistics. Let me give a couple of current examples of the confusion surrounding types of statistics which should be dealt with in discussions on scope and framework.
Some major statistical surveys, and particularly one-off surveys, are not published under the ONS logo. Currently, even the annual Department of Health survey for England is not published under the Government statistical service logo. Moreover, as Northern Ireland has its own civil service, statisticians in Northern Ireland are not part of the Government statistical service and, consequently, their output does not appear under its logo.
We have a patchwork of arrangements. The source of statistics and the methodology used to produce them are not always obvious from the statistics themselves or from the credibility that they are accorded. However, the statistics commission, and the preceding discussions on the framework, should help us to strike the best balance.
I appreciate the frustrations expressed by the hon. Member for Meriden, but longer-serving Members experienced the same frustrations when the previous Government were in office. Labour Members have a long history of being in opposition, although we have no intention of returning to it. All the problems cannot be blamed on the Office for National Statistics.
We believe that the issues of who will bear the cost of producing statistics and who will categorise them will not only be addressed in the framework discussions but will become major features of the commission's work.
The hon. Member for Meriden asked which statistics will be collected, and how they will be collected. As I said, the current system is a patchwork, and the priorities will have to be discussed with the commission, with Departments and with the House. One matter that will have to be dealt with is the fact that, in many cases, Departments pay for the statistics that they collect. The statistics that the hon. Lady would like us to collect would also involve a cost.

Sir Michael Spicer: The Minister is obviously reaching the end of her speech. Will she confirm that the statistics that are currently controlled by Ministers—statistics, for example, on the RPI, waiting lists and education performance—will still be controlled by Ministers? If that is the case, what is the Minister's comment?

Miss Johnson: I shall address all those issues. This has been a very useful and good debate, with many worthwhile speeches and thoughtful comments. We believe that the scope will be dealt with in the discussions on the framework, and by the new commission.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central asked about the commission's work. The key words in our proposals are transparency and openness. Those words are not said lightly, and they will be backed by our actions. The commission will have full powers to comment on, and even to criticise in public, any proposals. It will also be able to decide on its programme and to make proposals of its own. We envisage that there will be an annual debate on the commission's report.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham asked about Ministers' role. There will be a public debate on ministerial views on statistics, and Ministers will be entirely accountable for their decisions. That is a vast improvement on the situation that pertained when the previous Government were in office—and, indeed, has pertained hitherto—in which all those decisions were made in private.

Mr. Letwin: If the hon. Lady is about to answer this question, I apologise for asking it once again. Has she not just admitted that Ministers will decide—that the crucial recommendation, recommendation (b), is not being fulfilled and that Ministers will continue to control most of the essential statistics?

Miss Johnson: The commission will be able publicly to say what it wants to say about any proposals or set of statistics. Ministers will be able to say whether they would like something to be included. Nevertheless, the matter will be for the commission, since if statistics are to qualify as national statistics, the way in which they are collected and audited will have to meet all the criteria established by the commission. The quality of statistics produced will have to be decided on the basis of the criteria for national statistics. If a Minister and the commission disagree on statistics, there will be a debate about what should be done with those statistics.

Mr. Letwin: I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who is being most courteous, but I really do want to press the point. If the commission believes that it, rather than the Treasury, should control the definition and collection of data on the RPI, will its view or the Chancellor's prevail?

Miss Johnson: I shall deal with the RPI in a moment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made a very interesting speech on all the central issues surrounding the average earnings index. He made the point that international cost comparisons are fraught with difficulty. It is clear, however, that United Kingdom statistics are among the most highly regarded internationally and in Europe. Nevertheless, we must strive for further improvements. I have noted my hon. Friend's remarks. He also mentioned what he regarded as the lack of a mechanism for determining ONS resources. On the contrary, the White Paper makes it clear that Ministers will determine resources. That will be done publicly, following advice provided publicly by the statistics commission, which will be more accountable for decisions.
The right hon. Member for Fareham asked why the advisory committee had been disbanded. I am told that that was done on the advice of the director of the ONS, in anticipation of the statistics commission being set up.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central referred to the development of a monthly index of services, which is an exciting and important development. Services represent over 70 per cent. of the UK's gross domestic product and it is right that we have frequent and up-to-date information on this key sector. The UK will be one of the first industrial nations to achieve the compilation of that statistical series. That confirms our interest in the matter and our ability to be ahead of the game.
A number of hon. Members referred to the RPI, which is of special importance to the UK economy—as no hon. Member would dispute. It is worth while explaining how it is produced. The ONS is responsible for the compilation, presentation and publication of the index, its sub-groups and subsections. To listen to the hon. Member for West Dorset, one might imagine that it is produced by the Chancellor in a matter of moments. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the ONS is responsible for producing the RPI. That is a long-standing arrangement, as is the arrangement that the RPI remains ultimately under the authority of the Chancellor.
The detail is produced by the ONS, and any changes to be made to the RPI would have to be announced to Parliament. The Chancellor is answerable to Parliament for those changes, and that is the most direct form of accountability for something of major statistical importance.

Mr. Letwin: Does that not amount to saying that, although the technicians are provided by the ONS, all the critical decisions about the compilation of the index are made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can she genuinely maintain that that is in any sense a fulfilment of recommendation (b)?

Miss Johnson: The Chancellor remains directly accountable to Parliament for what is done with the RPI. There is no evidence—nor has there been any suggestion—of any political interference. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to egg me on, I can contrast the present situation with what happened to the claimant count under the previous Government: over 18 years it was amended 30 times. Strangely, the vast majority of those amendments led to a large drop in the claimant count. I do not recall the Conservatives objecting to that.

Mr. Edward Davey: Why should the RPI be treated differently from every other statistic? The whole purpose


of having an independent statistics commission is to get reliability and integrity back into statistics for the reason to which she referred—the abuse of unemployment statistics by the previous Government. Why should the RPI still be under political control?

Miss Johnson: The RPI is of special importance to the UK economy and, for that reason, is directly—and under long-standing arrangements—under the authority of the Chancellor, who is accountable to this House.

Sir Michael Spicer: Will the Minister give way?

Miss Johnson: No, I will not give way. I have given way plenty of times.
The Government attach great importance to high-quality national statistics that command public confidence. At the heart of the production of those statistics will remain the ONS, both in its role as the major statistics organisation in the country and in its role in enhancing statistics across government.
I am confident that the processes and structures that we have put in place through the White Paper will ensure that, in future, the Office for National Statistics will be an outward-looking and innovative organisation, producing statistics to the highest standards of quality and integrity, and responsive to user needs.
We have great aspirations for the future work of the commission and the national statistician. We believe that we will end up with national statistics of greater transparency, and with more accountability built into the system, than anything we have seen in the UK. This will provide what so many hon. Members have supported—a recognition that we cannot have good government without good information. We believe that the changes we are making in the White Paper will lead to the good information on which even better government can be based.

Parliamentary Ombudsmen

[Relevant documents: The First Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration, Session 1998–99, Report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman for 1997–98 (HC 136); the Second Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration, Session 1998–99, Annual Report of the Health Service Ombudsman for 1997–98 (HC 54); the Second Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration, Session 1997–98, Report of the Health Service Ombudsman for 1996–97 (HC 352), and the Government's response thereto (HC 1055 of Session 1997–98).]

Dr. Tony Wright: While listening to the previous debate—and to other exchanges across the Floor of the House—it occurred to me that there might be a case for having a statistical ombudsman to test some of the claims that are made. Perhaps the new statistics commission could spawn an ombudsman's arm to which we could send some of the disputed figures. However, I doubt whether we shall see that.
It is a great pleasure to introduce these reports from the Select Committee on Public Administration. The House will be aware that these are not the reports that have been wholly taking the Committee's attention recently, as much of its recent work has been concerned with looking at the draft Freedom of Information Bill. I am told that the Government are tomorrow to give their response to our deliberations, and we will look with interest at what they say following our extensive labours on that front.
It is a pleasure to introduce the reports and to invite the House to consider—albeit for a short time—the work of the ombudsmen and the work of the Select Committee in relation to them. However, it is also a source of regret—even shame—for the House that there has been no debate on the work of the ombudsmen in this Parliament; indeed, there has been no such debate since 1994. That is a source of shame, because I am referring to an institution or instrument devised by Parliament; I am talking about Parliament's instrument to hold the Executive to administrative account. Because of that, an analysis of and debate on the work of the ombudsmen through the Select Committee would give the House an opportunity to engage in some serious scrutiny of the work of Departments as monitored by the complaints that have come the way of the ombudsmen, and then been reported to the Select Committee.
It strikes me as ironic—even tragic—that the only people who come to these debates are my esteemed colleagues on the Committee. The people who should come are those who want to use the reports of the ombudsmen and of the Select Committee to interrogate Departments, which is what those reports enable them to do.
It is a source of great regret that the House does not have even an annual debate on the work of its own instrument. We should have an annual opportunity to engage in such interrogation. The House has an annual debate on the work of the Public Accounts Committee. It would be right and proper for us to have a similar annual debate on the work of the ombudsmen, as reported through the Public Administration Committee.
When my hon. Friend the Minister replies to the debate, he will be in the fortunate position of being able to tell us that there is a review of the work of the ombudsmen and


another on how the new NHS complaints system is working. It is a good pitch for a Minister to be on, because he can call in aid at least two reviews.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): For the sake of correctness, we are conducting an evaluation rather than a review of the NHS complaints procedure. We want to look at what is happening, build on success and identify the difficulties.

Dr. Wright: I was fearful for a moment that my hon. Friend's intervention was going to be rather more serious. However, I am glad to accept that we should be talking about an evaluation of the NHS complaints system, which has serious problems, as evidenced by an initial study. Hon. Members may want to say more about that later.
My serious point was that, although my hon. Friend can rightly call in aid the review and evaluation, it goes closer to his responsibility to say something to the House about why there is no annual opportunity to consider the work of the ombudsmen—an institution that was created by the House to do a particular job.
When I was thinking about the debate, I had a slight flight of fancy. Would it not be extraordinary if this year, with the Queen's Speech coming in a few weeks, the Government decided not to do the usual thing of announcing a raft of new legislation, but to spend the year trying to evaluate how well existing laws were working?

Sir Patrick Cormack: Marvellous idea.

Dr. Wright: I know that it is an outrageously splendid idea. The House is extraordinarily good at processing legislation. We assume that, as one year follows the last, another raft of new legislation will be processed. However, the House is very bad at evaluating—to use the Minister's word—how well the legislation and the administration of it is working. Through the ombudsmen and our audit and inspection regimes, the House could begin to look seriously at how the Government are working and how well existing legislation is being implemented, rather than always taking the more exciting course of introducing more. That is a deficiency in the operation of the House. The ombudsmen and the Select Committee give the House an opportunity to engage in that.
The ombudsman is a peculiarly British invention, although it is not a British word. There are more ombudsmen in this country than anywhere else. We may have borrowed the idea initially, but my goodness, we have run with it, developed it and proved its worth. We do not have a system of administrative courts. The ombudsman is a peculiarly British way of handling redress in relation to the state and public services.
Thirty years ago, there were great doubts about whether Parliament should set up the institution. The Conservative Opposition of the day, led in splendid form by Quintin Hogg, were very much against it. They argued that it would undermine Parliament, whose job it was to engage in redress of grievance, and that it would be improper for another institution to take on that role. That sounds quaint in the era of citizens charters and all the rest. It may just mean that it takes the Conservatives 30 years to catch up with developments. Who knows, perhaps they will be

raving Euro-fanatics in 30 years. It was a curious and revealing argument at the time, because although it was a proper constitutional point, it was nonsense and would have deprived the citizen of the opportunity to acquire a new device for seeking redress against administrative actions.
The system was set up in an interesting and distinctively British way, with odd terms that no one understood, such as maladministration. The ombudsmen were supposed to seek out injustices consequent on maladministration. They worked away at the framework that Parliament had given them to produce a highly effective instrument on behalf of the citizen. It bedded down and has been extended over the years. In the early 1970s, it was extended into the health service ombudsman scheme. In 1994, the ombudsman was given responsibility for the operation of the code of practice and access to Government information. In 1996 clinical complaints in the health service as well as the family health service were added to the health service commissioner's responsibilities.
The story is one of growth and development—and success. Thousands of citizens have had redress for maladministration because of the ombudsman scheme. They would not have had the opportunity otherwise, and the House should celebrate that.
The other feature of the scheme is that it has been a means whereby administration has been tested, and has had to account for itself and hopefully improve itself, too. There are administrative audit and performance monitoring functions as well. The ombudsman's activities in relation to disability living allowance some years ago, and more recently in relation to the Child Support Agency, were celebrated because they exposed the deficiency of the regimes, enabling people to secure justice and reforming the systems because of what the complaints had highlighted.

Mr. Brian White: Does my hon. Friend agree that great as those successes have been, they have not affected enough people? Many people's experience of ombudsmen is rejection at the first hurdle, and they could have been a far greater success had they taken on more cases.

Dr. Wright: I shall mention one or two of the problems, and my colleagues on the Committee will probably also wish to address those points. For the moment, I wish to emphasise the positive side of the story. To illustrate that in easy and personal terms, I have a constituent who took a complaint to the health service ombudsman. I noticed that the complaint was being examined by the Committee—I was not a member at the time—and asked my constituent if he wished to come here for the day to witness the Committee interrogating the health trust and health authority which were the origin of his complaint. He did so, and came out blinking in disbelief that his small, individual complaint had resulted in a Committee of Members of Parliament grilling health chiefs about how it could have happened. His regard for this institution increased immeasurably because of what he saw those Members of Parliament doing on that occasion.

Ms Margaret Moran: We celebrate the achievements of the ombudsmen as a
sharp and piercing instrument of investigation",


as Richard Crossman called them in 1976, and which he bequeathed to us. However, does my hon. Friend agree that one problem of the current system is its complexity and the number of ombudsmen who exist? That militates against citizens understanding the system, leading to fewer referrals, especially to the parliamentary ombudsman. Is not that a cause for concern?

Dr. Wright: My hon. Friend's point about complexity and how many ombudsmen we now have gives me an opportunity to advertise my book. When I tried a few years ago to put together a little guide to the various complaints mechanisms that existed, I thought I would produce—at first for my own benefit—a modest little booklet. It ended up as a 400-page book—unavailable, I might say, from all good bookshops—about how complaints could be made. In the past year, the National Consumer Council produced an A to Z of ombudsmen and it described more than 20 schemes in the public and private sectors, all described as ombudsmen schemes. My hon. Friend is right to question whether that explosion of such schemes, or ombudsmania as it is sometimes called, produces its own difficulties.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's cogent speech with great interest. He is obviously very knowledgeable on the subject. Has his Committee considered the inconsistency between the positions of the local government ombudsman and the parliamentary ombudsman? Any citizen can complain to the local government ombudsman directly, but complaints to the parliamentary ombudsman have to be made through a Member of Parliament. Individual Members of Parliament will have different standards about which complaints are referred and, for a vast chunk of Government policy, the individual citizen cannot be sure whether his complaint will be referred.

Dr. Wright: That is a fascinating question to which I could give a long and fascinating answer. Perhaps other hon. Members will wish to contribute on that point. The short answer is that Parliament was most insistent when it set up this scheme that it wanted to retain control through what is called the filter—the Member of Parliament acting as the gatekeeper of the system. My view has been that it is difficult to sustain that because we have direct access now to the health service ombudsman, let alone the local government ombudsman. That is a real inconsistency and although I can understand Parliament's intention at the time, we have moved on since.

Sir Patrick Cormack: In the debate in December 1994, the hon. Gentleman was forthright in saying that the filter should go. He now seems to be equivocating a little. Has he changed his mind now that he has the chairmanship of the Committee?

Dr. Wright: I confess to my neighbour and friend that I have been waiting for responsibility to change my mind on all kinds of issues, but it has not yet happened. It has not happened on this issue either. I thought that I was making it clear that I considered it impossible to sustain an argument for indirect access when that is contradictory

across the ombudsman system. The ombudsmen themselves have expressed the view frequently that such access was no longer applicable, but the House has insisted on it in the past.
Currently, another survey of hon. Members is being held, covering that and other issues. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) has replied to it. All the replies will soon be collated, and we shall then know whether the present House of Commons believes that the filter should stay or go.
The success of what was seen as an innovation in 1967 has to a great extent turned on the character of the individual occupants of the ombudsman's office. I should like to take to this opportunity to state that I consider that Sir William Reid, who held that office between 1990 and 1996, provided a benchmark for performance in the role. That assessment is widely shared by people who knew him at close quarters, and by people in the outside world who used his services. This House has cause to be extremely grateful for his tenure in office. He set a standard for others to follow.
Given the importance of getting the right person in post, and the moves to extend the role of Parliament, it would be right for Parliament—perhaps through the appropriate Select Committee—to have a direct role in the appointment of a person who is the servant and instrument of the House. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reflect on that and respond at the end of the debate.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Surely there is an inconsistency in the hon. Gentleman's argument. If the filter is to go, the parliamentary part of the ombudsman's title must also go, as must the degree of accountability to Parliament. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. It is possible to make a perfectly logical case for one alternative or t'other, but it seems to me to be difficult to make an equally logical case for both at the same time.

Dr. Wright: It may be that added responsibility, although it has not changed my views, has added to my store of contradictions. However, we must wrestle with such matters as we consider the review that is now under way.
So successful has the ombudsman system proved that it has been much emulated. There has been a proliferation of complaints bodies and ombudspeople everywhere. Indeed, I think that more are needed. I mentioned a statistics ombudsman, but we also need a rail ombudsman to sort out the fragmentation of redress and complaints machineries in the rail industry. We need, too, a utilities ombudsman to sort out the difficulties encountered in complaining about some of the utilities.
I believe that we have further to go in developing the ombudsman idea. The point about that idea is that it is independent, rigorous and free. It should also be easy to access. Given the worry about the growth of litigation, especially in the health service, we should pay special regard to an institution that has all the merits that I have listed, and none of the deficiencies of systems involving courts and lawyers. That is worth thinking about in connection with the present evaluation of the NHS complaints system.
However, I am sure that some elements of the system will occasion comment today. They include the questions of indirect access that have been raised already, as well


as matters to do with the time taken by investigations, and the need to achieve a balance between finding redress for complainants and achieving an appropriately thorough investigation.
In addition, bodies covered by the ombudsman at present must be explicitly included in the schedules to the relevant legislation. The alternative method would be for the ombudsman service to cover all public bodies except those that are specifically excluded. I have always believed that matters should be arranged that way around. The Government, to their credit, have recently included many more public bodies, but the principle is still wrong.
Even more important issues arise over the connections between the parliamentary ombudsman, the health service ombudsman and all the other ombudsmen and adjudicator schemes that have developed in the public and private sectors. It is time to review what some would call diversity, but what others would call a mess. The review's purpose should be to see how we guarantee the integrity of ombudsman schemes.
If something is called an ombudsman scheme, it must have the characteristics that I have identified. How can we clarify and ease access to schemes, making it easy for citizens to use them? How do we achieve co-ordination between different schemes so that citizens can have complaints pursued, even if they cross boundaries? The example often cited is the boundary between health and social services, but there may be others.
If we must talk about joined-up Government—some people do not like that phrase; I do not much like it either—we must discuss joined-up redress as well. Government and the organisation of government are, for all kinds of reasons—usually good—becoming increasingly fragmented. Contracting out enables authorities to put other people in place to deliver services, for example. Fragmentation makes it more crucial that the means of complaint and redress should be simple and seamless. People should not need to understand the intricacies of boundary disputes to be able to have a complaint followed all the way through the system and to receive redress.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's courtesy in giving way once again. Does he expect it to be the norm that where the ombudsman makes a recommendation, the Department involved should follow it? If that is not so, there seems little point in having an ombudsman. In a recent constituency case—which I accept is not quite in the same area—Ofwat made a recommendation that Thames Water refused to follow. Would that not make a nonsense of the whole ombudsman system?

Dr. Wright: Almost certainly it would. However, I have said that the ombudsman system is a distinctively British invention. One of the things that makes it distinctive is that the ombudsman does not have the power to command Departments to do what he says they ought to do in redress, but, because this is Britain, Departments always do it. There is a convention that that should happen, and if Departments do not abide by it, they are marched before the Public Administration Committee and given a good talking to. Other people do these things more formally, but that is how we do them.
The Queen's Speech will not, of course, take up my recommendation of a year of rigorous administrative review. However, Parliament can ensure that we use the

instrument that we have created both to give redress to citizens and to keep an eye on how government is working. That is what the ombudsman does, and that is what the Public Administration Committee's reports on the work of the ombudsman enable the House to do.

Mr. Mark Oaten: I am delighted to participate in the debate. I am a member of the Public Administration Committee, but was not a member when the proceedings and investigations took place. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), who chairs the Committee, eloquently said that it was right to hold a debate on the ombudsman, and I agree that it is a shame that it has taken five years to get round to it.
The ombudsman clearly has a critical role. Ombudsmen are at the cutting edge when it comes to hearing and understanding the raw concerns of our constituents about the problems and difficulties of services. They provide a link to Westminster by which those issues may be raised. For many constituents, they also provide a final chance, after many other methods have been tried, to raise concerns. People often turn finally to the ombudsman in a great deal of frustration.
Given that the ombudsman has that critical role, it is a pity that many of my colleagues who came here in the 1997 intake have little understanding of that role and the way in which Members of Parliament should work alongside that office. That is one of the concerns that I put before the Minister tonight. When I was elected I certainly did not have a clue about what the ombudsman did—from speaking to colleagues, I know that the same was true of them. I did not know where one could get hold of papers with which to refer cases on to the ombudsman. I did not know that one had a statutory responsibility to sign the document, whatever. I certainly had no idea whether, to sign it, one had to understand and take up the merits of the case. I had little idea of whether the ombudsman had the power to do X, Y or Z.
If we are to deal with some of the issues highlighted by the report, such as the use and take up of the ombudsman, we need more education and information for some of the newer Members. Perhaps some Members who are stuck in their ways also need a little reminding of how the system works.

Mr. White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the confusions was that one might come across two similar cases, one of which was accepted by the ombudsman and one which was not? How does one judge the right way to put forward a case? That is one of the confusions suffered by the new intake of Members in the early days.

Mr. Oaten: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. For many Members it was trial and error. Someone came to the surgery with a case and I seemed to remember that six months before I had got away with it and the ombudsman had accepted a similar case, so I thought that I might do so again. Having a simple list next to one at surgery, showing which cases can and cannot be referred, would be a starting point.
That brings me to what is being called the Member of Parliament's filter. If Members are not clear how it works, then we must ask serious questions about that filter. I have


taken a particular view—I am sure that my colleagues have taken different views. I do not want to act as a filter. I am not going to judge individual cases. A constituent has the right to take a case forward to whatever level he or she chooses. I do not want to have to judge the case. If a Member's filter means making that judgment, I am not interested and I do not want to take part in that process. If we are saying that the filter means that one is advising a constituent whether the case is legitimate and can be taken forward or whether there is a better process, clearly the Member has a role to play there.

Sir Patrick Cormack: As I said earlier, the hon. Gentleman must accept the fact that when the ombudsman was established he was—to use the words of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright)—to be a parliamentary instrument. The ombudsman was to be someone who would enable us to do our jobs more effectively. Therefore, if we take out the filter, as it is generally called, we change fundamentally the conception of the job. That may or may not be the right thing to do, but one must accept that it is a fundamental change.

Mr. Oaten: Bluntly, our difficulty with the system is that we cannot do our job effectively because the right number of cases is not getting through to the ombudsman, as the filter is not working. Perversely, a system that we put in place to build in links with Westminster and get information through to the Floor of the House is causing the problem in the first place. The filter is adding a blockage to the system. If we want it to work properly, we need to remove that filter. I see no reason why a strong ombudsman should not be able to bring issues to Select Committees and to the Floor of the House, but without the filter system. That would increase the number of cases that come through.

Helen Jones: The burden of what the hon. Gentleman seems to be saying is that parliamentary accountability and a Member's filter are not synonymous and that there are many better ways to ensure that ombudsmen are accountable to this House, perhaps through involvement in their appointment, and through regular reports and debates on the Floor of the House, while still giving individual citizens access to the ombudsman as of right and without hindrance. Would the hon. Gentleman agree?

Mr. Oaten: The hon. Lady makes the point that I have been struggling to make for the past minute far better than I could.
The critical issue is that we get the information about what is going wrong with the system. How it comes to us does not matter a great deal. What should matter is that we know that it is coming to us in large amounts in the right areas. The filter has become an irrelevance to making that process work.
My experience as a Member of Parliament has surprised me. I regard myself as a busy MP; I have been accused of spending far too much time in my constituency. Like most colleagues, I get 500 or so letters a week and I am surprised at how few cases come from constituents asking me to refer their cases to the ombudsman. That brings me to my second concern,

which is a point that was well made by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase. The lack arises not because people do not have problems but because they do not have a clue about how ombudsmen work. The whole system is a complete confusion to ordinary folk.
There is a maze of different complaint systems and organisations. We have ombudsman fatigue. I was alarmed when the hon. Member for Cannock Chase suggested adding ombudsmen, although he may have been jesting. Beyond that, we have the Audit Commission, district auditors and local government ombudsmen. The citizens charter introduced endless different sorts of ombudsmen. Those are only some of the people and organisations involved: we have Ofthis and Ofthat. On top of that, organisations such as Ofsted, the Highways Agency and—very properly—the Child Support Agency have created their own departments to manage complaints. Devolution in Scotland and Wales has added different tiers. We also have parish, local and county councillors and Members of Parliament. The book by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase may not be available but it should be compulsory reading for constituents.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Has the hon. Gentleman read it?

Mr. Oaten: I have not, but I need a copy. I shall get an unsigned copy because I am sure that they are more valuable.
The systems may well work and have been added to over the years. If we looked at them on paper, I am sure that we would see a great logical interaction but they do not work in the real world for real people. I am pleased that the Government are considering reviewing the ombudsman system, but I hope that they will be ambitious and go beyond ombudsmen to consider the whole range of other organisations to which people can complain.
Another problem is the terms that we use. The ombudsman is a very British thing that was created years ago but it is a title that means little to people these days. In reality, people see things such as "Watchdog" on television. I do not suggest that we call everything "The Roger Cook Team", but these days people are much more engaged in complaining to television programmes. That is the way things are moving. I suggest that we consider the names of such organisations and try to get user-friendly names that mean something to people.
I used to advise the Audit Commission on public relations. When we talked to the press or anyone else, people would glaze over when we said that our client was the Audit Commission for Local Authorities and the National Health Service in England and Wales. If we described it as the watchdog for the NHS and councils, people would come to life and understand what it did. We need to look again at these issues because our various ombudsmen are our national watchdogs. We need to start thinking in that sort of language.
Perhaps we need one big watchdog that can really bite. Imagine one organisation that led on all these issues so that the problem of to whom people should write and whether they had got the right watchdog or ombudsman was an issue not for the complainant but for the large organisation: a one-stop shop ombudsman or watchdog. That is the language that we need to use if we are to gain people's trust and make the link with Parliament. Ombudsmen and the


present structures are not the way forward. There is no doubt that we also need good practice, proper public accountability and audit trails. Perhaps we need to split those functions off and have clear watchdogs with a much freer rein to act in the way I suggest.
None of that would be needed if things never went wrong in the first place. We have not yet had a chance to focus on the systems that we need to consider and the recommendations from some of the ombudsmen's reports on putting structures in place to ensure that complaints do not arise.
The findings of the health ombudsman's report certainly give cause for concern. It suggests a patchy service in key areas. Politically, it would suit me to say that, according to the ombudsman, complaints in the NHS have increased by 8 per cent. That would be a cheap and rather crude political jibe and it would not be accurate. I accept that complaints are not an accurate measurement of how a public service is going. One could argue that a large number of complaints is a good thing. It suggests that people feel able to complain about the service and that the ombudsman is doing his job. I am convinced that if we shifted to a system of watchdogs, we would have hundreds more complaints. Opposition Members would no doubt say that that proved that there had been underinvestment in health and local government. The reality would be that the public felt engaged in the process.
There are lessons in the reports for the Government and I hope that the Minister will touch briefly on them. The power that the ombudsman now has to report on clinical judgments in the NHS has taught us some interesting lessons. When the ombudsman looked into issues of administration, he found that the key problems that caused difficulties were poor keeping of medical records and lack of communication within the NHS. When he gained powers to look into clinical judgments, he found that the same two issues caused problems time and time again.
The ombudsman said that lack of record keeping not only got in the way of his job but jeopardised patient care. Time and time again, we have seen—the point was raised in the debate five years ago—that poor communications in hospitals can have a serious medical outcome. The Audit Commission—another plug for it—produced a serious report on communications in hospitals. I hope that the Minister will reflect on some of its findings. We hear much about money being pumped into the health service, but some low-cost ways of improving performance could, if we are to believe the reports, have significant outcomes in medical terms.

Mr. Simon Hughes: I rushed in as soon as my hon. Friend started speaking, so I am grateful to him for giving way. Does he accept that the experience in the health service is that it is often far better if people can complain immediately to someone very close by who can deal with their anger, frustration or dissatisfaction? If they have to leave the complaint until later and go through some bureaucratic procedure, it is often too late.
If every bit of the health service had a structure within which people received information saying, "Unhappy? Talk to person X. Ring this number now", so that they could talk there and then to someone who was not directly managing their mother, sister or child in the bed—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The hon. Gentleman should not be making a speech. I call Mr. Oaten.

Mr. Oaten: My hon. Friend is absolutely accurate. The first principle must be ensuring that mistakes do not happen in the first place. The second principle must be providing a local system for complaints. The third or fourth tier should be the ombudsman.
There is a good illustration of why complaints procedures will become critical. The ombudsman's report refers to litigation in the NHS. There is certainly a fear that we are turning into an American-style culture and that in future instead of going to the ombudsman, people will go to their lawyer as the first port of call. There is concern that litigation is getting out of control. I hear that the Government are looking into the question of litigation. I welcome that, but the estimates of £235 million seem set to grow in the future. I wonder whether the Minister will expand on or write to me later about how hospitals are managing that process.
I understand that hospitals make contributions to funds managed by the NHS for internal insurance against complaints and litigation. Are those funds adequate? How much does the NHS have to set aside for litigation? Is there a role for the private sector to step in and provide cheaper insurance?
I want to conclude by saying a little about the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—another complicated title. It essentially means the ombudsman who does the stuff that the health ombudsman does not do. Concerns are expressed in the report about the length of time that it takes to deal with complaints. Some of the reports say that the average time taken to deal with cases last year was 91 weeks. That is clearly unacceptable. It is good that the time is down from 100 weeks the year before, but clearly a lot more work needs to be done. The delay is of particular concern when we realise that sometimes the complaints are about the length of time that it took another organisation to help someone. It almost seems as though the ombudsman is rubbing salt into the wound by delaying that process. It greatly undermines the confidence of individuals if the people to whom they complain perform in the same poor way in relation to the problem. I am concerned that that should be looked into and that improvements should be sought.
I want to pick up on the point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, concerning those organisations that have not been brought within the remit of the ombudsman. One that especially stands out is the Student Loan Company. I have received complaints about that company and, although a vast amount of its work might not fall within the remit of the ombudsman, some administration elements would benefit from having recourse to the ombudsman.
I have focused on the negative parts of the work of the ombudsmen. They do a great deal of work, but there is frustration that that work is only the tip of the iceberg. The potential to do much more is enormous—to bring


many more cases to the Floor of the House and to the Select Committee. However, we must be ambitious in developing the role of watchdogs in future. I hope that, when the review takes place, the Government will think creatively about a modern way in which we can engage with our citizens and give them confidence that, here in Westminster, we have the right systems to hear their concerns properly and democratically.

Mr. Desmond Browne: I too welcome the opportunity to hold the debate this evening. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), my colleague on the Select Committee. Having heard what he did in a previous life, and the communication difficulties that he doubtless faced at that time, it is no wonder that, in a relatively short time, he is able to put to the House a quite fluent and coherent argument. I share the hon. Gentleman's desire for a greater awareness of the ombudsman's jurisdiction and of the role of Members of Parliament therein; I shall deal with that in more detail in a few moments.
Despite my membership of the legal profession—a qualification that I share with at least one other member of the Select Committee—I share the desire of the hon. Member for Winchester for clarity, and his concern about the growth in medical negligence litigation and the drain that that causes both on financial and on other resources of the national health service. I have some first-hand knowledge of that matter. I also share the craving for the demystification of jargon of which he spoke.
It is also a privilege to serve under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and to follow him in the debate. I have been a member of the Select Committee on Public Administration for only a few months. In common with the hon. Member for Winchester, my membership postdates the reports that we are debating—indeed, it postdates the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase. However, in that short time, I have come to realise why my hon. Friend has such a reputation in these matters. I shall say no more—[Interruption.] Shall we just call it an enviable reputation? I am in danger of talking myself into having to buy his book. Thanks to his chairmanship, to the prodigious output and the obvious skill and learning of our Clerk, and to the help of my Committee colleagues, I have learned much during the short time that I have been a member of the Select Committee. However, I take personal responsibility for the words that I shall utter tonight—they are all mine.
In 1966, Richard Crossman said that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration was established to provide the Back-Bench Member of Parliament with
an extremely sharp and piercing instrument of investigation.
Unfortunately, the parliamentary ombudsman scheme got off to an inauspicious start and attracted much criticism for its timidity. Over the subsequent 30 years, its reputation has been enhanced, to the point where it occupies
a part of the fabric of the UK's unwritten constitution.
The quotation is taken from the first report of the Select Committee in 1990.
However, despite the undoubted success of the scheme in providing a weapon of parliamentary control over the administration of government—in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase, "a highly effective instrument"—it does that only for a complainant who is able to seek the assistance of the ombudsman through a Member of Parliament.
Last year—30 years after that
sharp and piercing instrument of investigation
was created—20 per cent. of Members of Parliament found no use for it. The 550 Members who did refer cases referred, on average, only three cases each. Consequently, from a high watermark of 1,933 cases in 1996, the number of new referrals to the ombudsman has steadily decreased to an annual total of about 1,650.
Were the bald referral statistics the whole story, they would provide evidence equally for arguments that the ombudsman system was being appropriately used and for arguments that the system was being underused. However, Members of Parliament are clearly not referring to the ombudsman's office only such cases as they have reason to believe fall within his jurisdiction and they are unable to resolve themselves—the dual role that it was intended that Members of Parliament should play as gatekeepers to the system.
The ombudsman himself has advised Members that, in doubtful cases, they should not try to fathom the complexities of his jurisdiction, but should simply refer the cases to him. Hon. Members appear to have taken him at his word: as the ombudsman's reports down to the most recent one confirm, about 70 per cent. of cases referred to him have a subject of complaint that is not within his jurisdiction.
I would argue that, although the parliamentary ombudsman system has been an undoubted success and has provided a Rolls-Royce service in those 30 per cent. of cases that are either fully investigated or resolved informally, it has not been a success in respect of that countless unknown number of complainants who are potential clients of the service but who, for one reason or another, never get their cases to the ombudsman. We ought to address that problem, which has arisen as a consequence of several coincidental factors. I propose to draw the House' s attention to some of those factors and to suggest some solutions.
The first element in my argument is that the House of Commons has paid insufficient regard to the work of the ombudsman in the past, so we should not be surprised by the lack of awareness among the general public and newly elected Members of Parliament. It is widely recognised that, among other functions, debates in the Chamber serve to enhance parliamentary awareness of issues. It is now almost five years since the last debate on the work of the ombudsman, and I share other hon. Members' dismay at that delay.
In opening the last debate on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, Mr. James Pawsey, then Chairman of the Select Committee, said:
I welcome this debate; the first since 1991. Clearly that is far too long an interval and the House should be given greater opportunity to consider the work of the Parliamentary and National Health Service Commissioners."—[Official Report, 15 December 1994; Vol. 251, c. 1125.]
When responding to that debate, the then Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science could give neither Mr. Pawsey nor other hon. Members who had


raised the same point any assurance that there would be any more regular debates on the issue. However, I am sure that, were the former Minister still a Member of Parliament, he would be asking himself these questions: why is it now almost five years since the last debate on the work of the ombudsman, and how seriously does the House of Commons take that work, given that such irregular debates take place?
I recognise that, to an increasing extent, much of the valuable work carried out by and in the House of Commons is done outside the Chamber. However, given the nature of the service provided by the parliamentary ombudsman to Members of Parliament, one would have thought that a rare debate on the report of the Select Committee on the ombudsman's reports to the House would have attracted an audience and participation significantly wider than the members of the Select Committee itself.
I do not want to be misunderstood or misinterpreted—I am not arguing for the cancellation of debates if they do not attract the attention of many hon. Members besides the members of a specific Committee, supported by a few others with special interests or Front-Bench responsibilities. Debates such as today's—sparsely attended or not—at least have the intrinsic merit that they attract to the Dispatch Box a Minister who is briefed on the issues of the day.
When the Select Committee structure was established in 1979, the new Government at least appeared determined to give Parliament the teeth to monitor the work of Government Departments. The Procedure Committee that initiated the changes argued that a new balance had to be struck with the central aim of allowing the whole House to exercise effective control and stewardship over Ministers and the expanding bureaucracy of the modern state.
In introducing the proposals, the then Leader of the House referred to revolutionary changes that marked a crucial day in the life of the House of Commons. He said:
we are embarking upon a series of changes that could constitute the most important parliamentary reforms of the century."—[Official Report, 25 June 1979; Vol. 969, c. 35.]
That historic perspective on the establishment of Select Committees was not shared by everyone—certainly not by all Members of the House. At the time of the debate on the substantive motion setting up the Committees, the then Member of Parliament, Willie Hamilton, contended that the whole process was
the status quo in a different wrapping.
He continued:
The Government are making these proposals precisely because they know they are cosmetic and will not change anything much."—[Official Report, 25 June 1979; Vol. 969, c. 98–99.]
Viewed from today's perspective, it would appear that the arguments for a new system advanced by the Procedure Committee then could be asserted with equal strength today. The Committee's report said:
surveillance of the Executive will not be substantially improved unless other reforms take place, such as … among other things … more access to the Floor of the House of Commons.
There can be no criticism to the effect that the Select Committee on Public Administration or its predecessor, the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, have failed to devote sufficient time to considering the work of, and reports from, the ombudsman: on the contrary.
Indeed, when the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Health Service Ombudsman were appointed in 1967 and 1974 respectively, it is undoubtedly true that the Committee gave the ombudsmen backbone. The danger then was that the first Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, as a former civil servant, might bow to pressure from former departmental colleagues and, to coin a phrase, "stay native". The Committee encouraged him to think more confrontationally and, at least in important cases, to conduct individual investigations.
I argue that there was then creative tension between the ombudsman and the Committee. However, now that the system is fairly well established, the Committee has a close relationship with the ombudsman. It is a settled relationship that no longer appears to generate much creative tension, apart from the Committee's interest in the throughput time of investigations. The Committee appears to walk in stride with the commissioner, which has some benefits. However, when the relationship between the Committee and the ombudsman was at its most creative, the Committee was snapping at his heels.
The argument that the ombudsman and the Select Committee are a powerful combination for securing remedial action is a separate issue. Undoubtedly, nothing concentrates the mind of a reluctant Department better than the threat of a grilling before the Select Committee. There is no doubt that recalcitrant Departments threatened with this big step find it easier to come up with rather than refuse a remedy. However, that productive dynamic would not be undermined in any way if the Committee presented a more challenging and questioning face to the parliamentary ombudsman. I would argue that the Committee no longer does that, apart from on one or two minor issues.
I turn to the question of the Member of Parliament filter, and in this part of my contribution I hope to address the points made earlier by way of intervention by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack)—I am sure that, if I fail now, he will give me an opportunity to do so later.
I believe that a central reason for the underuse of the Parliamentary Commissioner can be found in the Member of Parliament filter. By putting in place the hurdle of the Member of Parliament filter in 1966, the House accepted three arguments. First, there was the practical reason that, without it, the parliamentary ombudsman would be inundated with complaints. The filter would keep such complaints at bay and within manageable limits. Those who now argue for the retention of the filter often say that the number of complaints to the ombudsman has reduced because of the increased number of alternative complaints procedures provided within Departments or organisations.
If that argument is true, the siphoning off of complaints to intradepartmental complaints procedures would help to stem the expected flood were the filter to be removed. As a member of the legal profession, I was never impressed by the floodgates argument when it was put to me from the Bench in connection with any decision.
Those of us who believe that the existence of the filter and the requirement for the intervention of a Member of Parliament—not the filtering provided by the Member, but simply the requirement for the intervention—have a stifling effect on potential claims, must accept that their removal would have serious resource implications.


However, we accept the commitment of additional resources to the identification of maladministration and the resolution of complaints as an appropriate expenditure which will lead to cost savings in the long run.
The filter may control the quantity of complaints received, but it does nothing to ensure equality of justice for all complainants, and generates a fundamental flaw increasingly out of kilter with modern thinking about access to justice for all. It is also out of kilter with the Government's ambitions for public services as set out in chapter 3 of the White Paper, "Modernising government". Paragraph 6 of that chapter says that the Government want public services that, among other things,
make it easy to complain and get a result when things go wrong.
Secondly, the House accepted the argument that a filter would make the establishment of the ombudsman's office more acceptable to Members of Parliament who might otherwise have seen it as a rival to their grievance-handling activities. In 1999, do we really believe that a system that absorbs about 1,500 complaints a year, and rejects 70 per cent. of them, is a rival to Members of Parliament in their "ombudsman" and advocacy roles?
In 1997, communications from Members of Parliament to Ministers were estimated to amount to 200,000—the equivalent of about 300 per year per Member. If we compare that with the 1960s, when research shows that Members of Parliament were generating only about 20,000 letters a year, we get a flavour of how little threat an unfiltered ombudsman system would be to Members of Parliament in their exercise of that role.
In 1999, it is not the fear of a constitutional rival that threatens Members' parliamentary lives, but the increasing demands made of them to help their constituents. The number of people seeking the help of their Members of Parliament has increased dramatically. In the mid-1960s, the total mailbag for Parliament consisted of 10,000 letters a week. By 1997, that figure had increased to 70,000 letters, 40,000 of which were incoming mail. What does the arithmetic show? Do Members of Parliament answer 10,000 letters a week? That would be slightly disturbing—[Interruption.] No, they do not all come to me. There can hardly be a Member of Parliament who would not welcome some relief from that increasing burden.
Next, the House accepted what was described as the ground of the high constitutional principle—that the ombudsman should be an additional weapon in a Member of Parliament's armoury rather than a freestanding institution undermining Ministers' and Departments' accountability to Parliament. It is a good job that the frequency of, and the participation in, debates about the ombudsman's work are not the only measure of how highly Members have regarded that "high constitutional principle" since 1967.
How could an ombudsman who has no power to institute his own departmental audit, and whose annual reports merit pathetically few column inches in our national newspapers and almost no electronic media coverage, present any alternative to the constitutional position adopted by the House as a safeguard of ministerial responsibility?
In addition, possibly because of the complexities of the ombudsman's jurisdiction and remit, Members of Parliament apparently find it difficult to decide whether

complaints should be investigated by his office. As I have said, in most years 70 per cent. of the complaints sent to the ombudsman are outwith his jurisdiction. The modern Member of Parliament, whatever the historical precedent may suggest, seems content with the principle that cases may be referred to the ombudsman whether they would be more appropriately dealt with elsewhere or not.
To those reasons, I could add a lack of public awareness, which the hon. Member for Winchester spoke about. I throw one more statistic into the debate. The parliamentary ombudsman estimates that only 14 per cent. of the public know anything about him, never mind know and understand why he is there. I have no doubt that other hon. Members have their own reasons for their underuse of the parliamentary ombudsman, and they could add to the list to which I have treated the House in the past 15 minutes.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Twenty minutes.

Mr. Browne: I was careful to refer only to the part of my speech in which I set out those reasons: the other part was an introduction.
I have given sufficient evidence of the need for change. That said, I believe that it is time we had this debate, for several reasons. A new ombudsman has been appointed since the previous debate. In January 1997, when Mr. Michael Buckley was appointed, he brought a different approach to the office on a number of issues. It is clear from the marked improvement in throughput times and the efficient clearance of all cases that his approach is paying off.
On 30 March this year, the Minister for the Cabinet Office announced a review of the public sector ombudsman in England. That review is taking place in a post-citizens-charter age and at a time of modernisation. If the ombudsman's deliberations are to reflect that agenda, it is appropriate that the House put down some contemporary markers.
There has also been devolution in Scotland and Wales. Scotland and Wales have their own parliamentary commissioner or equivalent. It is interesting to note that, despite the constitutional difficulties that this may present, there is direct access to the Welsh ombudsman.
Finally, it is appropriate to remind my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that many of the undertakings made by the then Government in response to the 1994 review have been awaiting legislative time since then. I am sure that those undertakings will be considered under the current review.
I said that was my final point, but there is one other factor that makes it apposite to have a review. Lest it should have escaped the attention of hon. Members, I might point out that there has been a radical change in the party composition of the House of Commons since the previous debate, and my impression is that at that time it was older Members and Conservative Members who favoured the MP filter.
In conclusion, I offer three thoughts for consideration by the Parliamentary Secretary, by the Government's review and by the Select Committee. First, are the arguments for the MP filter still compelling? Secondly, does the ombudsman system provide value for money? Between them, the parliamentary ombudsman and the health


service ombudsman cost about £15 million, receive about 5,000 referrals and fully investigate about 450 of them. I suspect that there is a long-term disadvantage in owning a Rolls-Royce, and that is its mileage per gallon. Thirdly, is it time to amend the existing legislation to simplify the ombudsman's jurisdiction? On that I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase. We should amend the 1967 legislation to show what is not within his jurisdiction, as opposed to listing what is.

Helen Jones: In view of the time, I shall make only a few brief remarks as a contribution to the debate. Through our deliberations in the Select Committee, we have clearly learned that the office of the ombudsman is important as an instrument for individual citizens to exercise their democratic rights and to assert those rights against the state and against other institutions. It is a major instrument of democracy if it is used properly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said, it has been a great success over the years.
If, in the few minutes available to me, I concentrate on what I believe are the shortcomings of the system, it is not to underrate those successes, but to consider how we can improve the office. We should examine whether the institution that we have established is serving its purpose, whether it is accessible to the individual citizen and whether it resolves complaints speedily.
I agree with many who have spoken today that one of the real drawbacks of the ombudsman system is the fact that many ordinary citizens do not understand how it works or how to approach it. We must consider how it works against the background of an increase in the number of institutions that deal with complaints. Indeed, many institutions have set up their own procedures to resolve complaints. In particular, we should consider the system against the background of increasing litigation to which some have referred today—particularly litigation involving the NHS.
As a lawyer—like my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne)—I suppose that I should be in the business of encouraging people to go to law. However, I have to say that, particularly when dealing with medical negligence cases, I have observed that what often motivates people is not a desire to have their day in court, but simply a desire to find out what has gone wrong and to secure an apology. If we establish a system that allows them to do that, we can drastically reduce the amount of litigation against, in particular, the national health service.
The question we must then ask is whether the system does that. I would argue that, at present, it does not. When we considered the Select Committee's report, it was interesting to discover that, although previously the number of cases referred to the ombudsman had risen each year, by 1997 it was falling. That may be partly due to the introduction of other systems of redress, but I am convinced by my own experience that it is also partly due to the difficulties that people have in gaining access to this system. There is a lack of knowledge out there. As the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) pointed out, the very title of the ombudsman—the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—often puts people off. What does it mean to the ordinary citizen? Very little, I think.
There is also a problem in regard to the ability of the ombudsman system, as we have it, to resolve cases speedily. In the last year that we looked at, 1997–98, it was taking an average of 100 weeks to resolve cases. Although some of that was certainly due to the tackling of a backlog of old cases, even in 1992 the average time was 52 weeks. In my view—especially in cases involving the health service, when people will be under a severe strain already—that is far too long to have to wait.
Many hon. Members have mentioned that we have different ombudsmen dealing with different parts of the public sector. That is confusing for the public. Surely it is time for the House to consider setting up a single office, so that a single ombudsman could deal with all cases across the public sector. It is also time to consider the issue of the ombudsman's jurisdiction. As has been said, there is a case for amending the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 to specify which bodies are excluded from the ombudsman's jurisdiction, rather than those that are included.
The real problem, however, is that many non-departmental public bodies are not within the jurisdiction, and they have spread into many areas of our lives. The same is true of many bodies that now work in community care, or provide services for our citizens. It is time that we seriously considered how those bodies can be made accountable, and how an individual citizen can gain redress in that sector. That was brought home to me forcefully by a recent case in my constituency involving a charitable institution—in this instance, a charity almost wholly funded by public money through a section 64 grant.
We have to start asking ourselves: how is public accountability best served in those cases? How can an individual gain redress if something goes wrong? Those institutions often provide services to vulnerable groups and cover major areas of people's lives. It is not good enough for hon. Members simply to close their eyes to that situation, however difficult it might be to resolve, and to leave individual citizens without redress.
I agree with what has been said about the problems with the Member of Parliament filter. It is now illogical and unsustainable. As I said in an intervention, the issue for us should be how to make the ombudsman accountable to the House, rather than how to filter individual cases.
The issue of discretion needs to be tackled. I have personal experience of referring a number of cases to the ombudsman, who has then declined to investigate. Often, the individual who goes to the Member of Parliament has reached the end of the line in pursuing a case. That is a cause for concern. Where does the individual go in that situation? Often, we leave him or her with nowhere to go.
Our challenge is to ensure that we have a much more accessible, simplified and proactive ombudsman service, which individuals can understand and to which they have easy access. A presumption should be built into the system in favour of investigation, rather than non-investigation. If we do that, we shall offer to individual citizens a major extension of their democratic rights and a major safeguard against an overmighty state. With that, I draw my remarks to a close as I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) is waiting to speak.

Mr. Brian White: I am particularly happy to participate in the debate, although the comments of the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) about what something is called brought to mind that a friend of mine could never pronounce "ombudsman" and always referred to him as the omnibus man. It was in relation to the local government ombudsman, an office that used to be a filter through local councillors, but which no longer is. That has not brought the end of democracy as we know it. Instead, it has enhanced the local government ombudsman.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) said that the relationship would change if the Member of Parliament filter were removed. I accept that, but change will be necessary if we are to champion people's rights. When the system was set up, the culture was that the state knew best and people were subjects of the state. In the 1990s, there is more a culture of people exercising their rights. If the ombudsman is to move to the culture of exercising people's rights, the relationship between the ombudsman, parliamentary Committees and Parliament itself will have to change. That change is to be encouraged.
Another problem is the initial review. One of the key grounds for refusal is the time limit. I have a case where a Department has refused to accept that there was a problem because the person complained outside the time limit. The ombudsman refused to take on the case because it was outside the time limit for investigation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) has said, where does a person go then?
We keep going back to the ombudsman to try to persuade him to take on the investigation. If the case were investigated, he would find the department guilty of maladministration, and learn that it should have informed the person at the time and did not. It would be clear that there had been maladministration and she would receive the entitlement that she has been denied. There is the whole question of denial of justice because of the way in which the ombudsman system rejects series of investigations.
The issue is less about the number of complaints than about how those complaints are handled. Individuals' rights are critical. We should also bear in mind the changing nature of the state.
I am dealing with a planning dispute case that has been taken to the ombudsman. The case involves the former Department of the Environment, English Partnerships, the former Commission for New Towns, the local authority, the parish council and a developer. However, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration has power to deal with only a part of the case—as some of the parties are public, whereas others are only partly public—and the parties have had to go to the local government ombudsman to resolve other parts of the case. The problem is the boundary between the two ombudsmen, both of whom are saying, "It's the other ombudsman's responsibility to sort it out."
As we move towards more joined-up government—something that I fully support—including task forces, a social exclusion unit and a new way of working to end a silo mentality, how are we to hold to account those engaged in cross-departmental working? The ombudsman's role will have to evolve to address

that issue. The Government should have a holistic approach, but the ombudsman's role also will have to be brought up to date.
I do not know of many private-sector complaints procedures that are the same today as they were in the 1960s. I do not think that the public service should be denied similar modernisation in its complaints procedures.
The ombudsman's relationship to regulators, such as Ofwat, has already been mentioned in the debate. However, how is the ombudsman to deal with the current plethora of regulators? I hope that the Government's review will address that issue.
The draft Freedom of Information Bill is raising issues about the role of the information commissioner, and the fact that the information commissioner will have responsibility for the denial of information. As was stated in evidence to the Committee, there is a clear relationship between the denial of information and maladministration. Although it was acknowledged that the issue will have to be addressed, the situation emphasises the plethora of regulatory bodies.
When other countries appoint ombudsmen, those ombudsmen are responsible to the legislature and not to the Executive. I strongly argue that the ombudsman appointment process should involve the Select Committee, which should have a role in interviewing, if not in appointing, ombudsmen. The role between the Executive and the legislature in appointing ombudsmen will have to develop over the years. As joined-up Government and modernising government proceed apace, the relationship of this place to the Executive also will have to develop.
The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) raised the issue of consumer protection—which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North also dealt with, but in relation to the health service. The Government have published a White Paper on consumer protection—on rip-off Britain—and are taking action to protect consumers. However, the Government's action should have an effect on how ombudsmen operate.
Currently, ombudsmen deal only with individual cases, not with institutional maladministration in which departmental procedures, rather than individual decisions, are causing the problems. As more individual cases are resolved by recourse to consumer legislation, ombudsmen will have to devote greater effort to examining institutional and information technology failures. Dealing with institutional failure and with how Departments are structured, and not with individual failures—although the United Kingdom is particularly bad at project management—has bogged down various Governments. I believe that the ombudsman has various skills that would be beneficial in addressing those issues.

Sir Patrick Cormack: I pay tribute to my neighbour and friend, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), for the way in which he introduced the debate and for his service as Chairman of the Committee. I thank also someone who has not been mentioned tonight, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), for his leadership and chairmanship of the Committee, until he was called to higher and wester things earlier this year.
I do not wish to sound churlish, but this has been in many ways an unsatisfactory debate. I am the first Member to speak who is not a member of the Select Committee, and the Minister shares that distinction with me. This is a subject of central importance to Members, but it has been a poorly attended debate on a day when one would have hoped that there would have been rather more in the Chamber. I do not subscribe to the ridiculous notion that the long recess is a long holiday, because clearly it is not. However, it would be nice to see more Members from both sides in the Chamber for a debate on a matter of central importance.
What we have had is a number of Select Committee members airing their views to the Chamber, and explaining why most of them think that what we need is a national complaints investigation bureau, rather than the system that we have at the moment.

Mr. White: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Patrick Cormack: No, I cannot, as I have such a short time.
That is the logic of much of what has been said by the hon. Members for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne) and for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), and—to some degree—by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase himself.
I agree with those who do not like the title of ombudsman, which is rather daunting and off-putting and difficult for people readily to understand. I much prefer the title "Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration", but that, too, is a mouthful. I would rather he had been called the public referee or investigator, or the parliamentary examiner—something that was more clearly explicit of the duties that he had to do.
When the instrument—as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase described it—was established, it was to be an instrument to assist Members of Parliament in their duties of scrutinising, probing and holding the Executive to account. Here, I ally myself entirely with the general substance of the remarks of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East.
On 18 October 1966—33 years and one day ago—Richard Crossman sought to describe to the House what he meant by maladministration. He said that it included
bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude, arbitrariness and so on."—[Official Report, 18 October 1966; Vol. 734, c. 51.]
We could all go "and so on". Tempting though it is, I will not score points against the Government in illustrating each of those defects. However, we should remember that the instrument was established to assist the Member of Parliament, and that it was an instrument of last resort.
It was expected that the Member of Parliament would be able, properly and adequately, to follow through most of the things that a constituent took to him. We must remember that the ombudsman was established in the days before Members of Parliament had free postage, even, and when surgeries were not common practice for all Members of Parliament. When I entered the House nearly 30 years ago, there were Members who had been here before the war and who regaled us in the Dining Room with tales of the "annual visit" to the constituency. The whole thing has changed beyond recall. In those days, the pressures on Members were much fewer. The system was an instrument of last resort and it worked very well.
We have to address whether we should maintain the parliamentary filter and whether the official in question should remain a parliamentary appointment. I agree that, if it is to be a parliamentary appointment, it should be a parliamentary appointment. I find it difficult to listen to people talk about Government review. The Government should not be reviewing the adequacy and efficacy of those set up to monitor and—if we like—police the effectiveness of their Departments. That is the duty of the House. It is a pity that there are not more of us here this evening and we do not have longer to discuss the issue. We have to decide whether we want a cohesive instrument or set of instruments that can assist us in our duties or whether we want to set up a public complaints investigation procedure that might work side-by-side with us in some respects but would be separate from us. The House cannot have it both ways. We have to examine the issues in more careful detail than perhaps we have hitherto.
I take the point of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun about the figure of 14 per cent. That survey was taken as recently as 1996. At that time, only 14 per cent. of the public understood that there was such a creature as the ombudsman, yet there has been a proliferation of ombudsmen in recent years—enough to fill several double decker omnibuses. How far should we seek to contain and direct their activities from this House? How far should we reserve to ourselves the function of one of them? How far should we move in a different direction? We have to address those issues.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase and others about the need for an annual debate. That is a difficult point to sustain when we see that, in the Chamber this evening, we have had some—not all—members of the Select Committee debating the issue with no help or audience from parliamentary colleagues. Of course I absolve the Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), who has come in specifically to listen to my speech. I am deeply flattered that he should be here. I hold him in fond affection.
The House must address the issues. I had some reservations about the establishment of the so-called second Chamber that is to sit in Westminster Hall at the beginning of the new Session, but I hope that it will give an opportunity for a series of more penetrating, longer debates on what Members of Parliament need to assist them in holding the Government to account. We are not as successful at that as we should be. I am not making a party point. I made the same point when I sat on the other side of the Chamber. The Government need to be held to account. They are not being held to account and they are getting away with far too much. Parliament needs to reassert itself. We all have a duty to take a part in that reassertion.
The ombudsman could have a critical role to play in that process. If he is to have that role, it is essential that access to him should be via, and with the assistance of, the Member of Parliament, but that means more resources for him and a greater awareness on the part of Members of Parliament of what the office was established for. The House must address those issues in some form here or in Westminster Hall. It is for the House to address those issues rather than the Select Committee, which is answerable to us and reports to us.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase and his colleagues for the assiduity of their work and the excellence of their report. However, we have illustrated tonight that we stand on the verge of a debate that must take place about the central role and function of the ombudsman and how he should perform that role.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate because, as colleagues on both sides of the House have said, they do not happen very often. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) said that that was unsatisfactory, but we have had an adult debate with no party politicking. Several big issues have been raised and I intend to try to deal with some of those major themes. I will of course write to individual hon. Members about points raised, especially to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) about the point he made about the cost to the NHS of litigation and possible insurance funds.
I wish to ensure that the tone and themes of the debate are drawn to the attention of Ministers and officials who are involved in the review of the ombudsman schemes and the evaluation of the NHS complaints procedure. Although differences have been expressed, the debate has seen a commonality of view.
I shall say a word about the modernising Government agenda. Several hon. Members talked about how things have changed since the last debate, including the citizens charters and the interest groups that regulate industry and Government and look after consumer interests. Hon. Members mentioned the need for high standards and well-defined recording systems and audit and decision-making trails. The system should be there when people need it and be quick and receptive. It should have common points of entry and, most importantly, put customers and citizens first. That is a big agenda and the present review of the ombudsman system needs to be put in that context.
As parliamentarians and public servants, one contribution that we can make is to praise things when they go well and identify good practice. If I had my way, for example, I would change the name of the Audit Commission to the Quality Commission. It should be a body that not only looks at what goes wrong, but promotes those things that go well. Ofsted could also learn a lesson from that, because it tends to be keen to criticise the negative, not to promote or sing the praises of good practice.
Unfortunately, we have an ombudsman system that, by definition, comes into play when things go wrong. It identifies problems, but it should also help us to learn the lessons and make use of complaints. I am never afraid of complaints, because they can lead to changes in the system.
I was pleased to see that the Select Committee's report contained a section on naming and shaming, which is a

topical issue. As I say, I think that we must encourage, praise and reinforce good practice. Paragraph 34 of the Select Committee's report states:
It is not and has not been the Committee's intention to 'name and shame'. It is the salutary lessons to be drawn from individual cases that we are interested in.
I think that that is right. Let us praise the positive, but let us learn the lessons when things go wrong. I am not sure that a discussion involving naming and shaming gets the balance right. People who are interested in social policy tend to focus on failure: we do not sell and sing success. There is a lesson for us all there.
I was interested to hear a number of hon. Members mention the way in which problems are dealt with. I agree with those who said that it is vital that there should be an early apology. When things go wrong, we should recognise that people are dissatisfied with the service. A simple acknowledgement of that is often enough.
People tell me that they are not interested in the money that might be paid in compensation and that they do not want to go to court to secure it. What they want is that the appropriate lessons are learned—for example, from the death of a child—so that what went wrong never goes wrong again. There are difficulties to do with legal liability, but practitioners should be aware that a simple understanding of, and willingness to accept, people's unhappiness with the process can save much time later and remove the need for recourse to lawyers.
Complaints were made about the lack of a regular debate on these matters. Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire for mentioning the Main Committee. I know that he has doubts about that innovation, which will start soon. However, I believe that it will allow hon. Members to look much more closely at Select Committee reports. There will be more time to debate them, and in a less partisan manner.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) was right to say that we have legislation mania. One of this Government's big achievements will be the move to pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope—to put it no higher—that the Main Committee will give us the opportunity to indulge in post-legislative scrutiny. My hon. Friend suggested that it should do so, and such scrutiny would appear to follow on from its pre-legislative counterpart as sensibly and inevitably as night follows day.
I am delighted that the Minister of State, Home Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), is alongside me on the Front Bench at the moment, as I was involved in the debates on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. We cannot use that Act as a clarion call to action if we do not go back and check that what was intended with the legislation is being achieved in practice. The Main Committee will give us the opportunity to carry out that check.
A number of points were made in the debate about the present parliamentary ombudsman system. It was said that the work load was too great. I should like to put on record my respect and admiration for the work of Sir William Reid, and for the present ombudsman team. I have looked at their work, and it seems to me that a number of administrative steps have been taken to speed up operations. Justice delayed is justice denied in the review system too, and progress is being made there.
A number of hon. Members spoke strongly about the filter system operated by Members of Parliament, and they asked whether it could be justified, given the changes that have taken place. I can tell them that the review is now under way and that the plethora of ombudsmen is one of the matters to be examined. The review will ensure that we achieve value for money, and I hope that we will receive some initial response early next year.
The debate has been helpful and valuable. There is a good deal of consensus around, but I echo the hon. Member for South Staffordshire, who said that the matter is up to us. It is our system; we parliamentarians agreed it, and we must rise to the challenge of change.

Rural Crime

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]

10 pm

Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I am extremely grateful to have been given the first available opportunity after the recess to raise the important issue of rural crime. I am glad to see the Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) in his place, but disappointed not to see the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) who had the courtesy to send me a charming note explaining that his absence from this debate, in which he has taken a great deal of interest, is due to his attendance at, as he put it, an organised crime summit in Moscow.
In August, the community of Emneth in my constituency and the whole of the fenland area were profoundly shaken by an incident that occurred just yards outside my boundary in the constituency of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner). The incident and the circumstances surrounding it are sub judice. The current factual position is that a farmer is on bail, accused of murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
That incident came hot on the heels of a double murder charge—also sub judice—in the adjoining village of Upwell a few months earlier. There had also been a string of armed break-ins—as yet unsolved—in our local rural post offices. I do not intend to rehearse information that is sub judice. In any case, my concerns go wider.
The Emneth incident in particular has resulted in an expression of public concern locally, nationally and internationally. There have been demonstrations, heated meetings, letters, and press and media comment the like of which I have not experienced in my political career. It would be no exaggeration to say that the incident has touched a nerve in rural communities everywhere. People from all over the country and from as far afield as Canada and Australia have written to say that they, in their isolated homesteads, businesses or farms where there is sparse police presence, are living in fear. Those are strong words, but they are the words that people have used.
A constituent who has supplied me her address but who does not wish it to be made public wrote that the fact that there is a slender police presence makes people who live in outlying districts take more draconian measures to protect themselves and their property. That is the key issue facing the Minister, the Government and, ultimately, us all. We cannot afford to allow a situation to develop in which people lose confidence in the power of the police to protect them and their property and in the forces of law and order to administer justice. The Government will wish to avoid that situation, as do we all.
The Minister will be aware of the depth of public concern. The well-respected newspaper the Eastern Daily Press, which covers all of Norfolk, has used the incident to launch a public campaign for more resources for rural policing. The Fenland Citizen, based in Wisbech, has collected more than 1,200 coupons filled in by its readers and asking for more resources. I have passed those on to the hon. Member for Norwich, South. The right hon. Member for Brent, South will be interested to know that


a further 130 coupons are in the safe keeping of his officials after I passed them on this evening along with two petitions from people in the fenland area.
The Minister will also know from written answers provided by his Department that, whereas in March 1997, Norfolk police strength was 1,432, it had fallen to 1,409 by September 1998 and to 1,381 by March 1999. As the Minister will also be aware, Norfolk has the lowest number of constables per 100,000 of population of any authority in England. As the chairman of the Norfolk police authority, Brian Landale, said, as reported in the Eastern Daily Press on 11 September:
The outcry following the recent events at Emneth is echoed in other rural areas of the country. Emneth was a time bomb waiting to happen.

Dr. George Turner: Does the right hon. Lady accept that the accuracy of reporting when the press gets involved in such events is illustrated by the fact that the incident to which she is referring happened in Marshland St. James, which is in my constituency? That shows that the press do not get the facts right. The truth is that Norfolk policing is where it is because of the decisions that she and her right hon. Friends made in the past 20 years.

Mrs. Shephard: The hon. Gentleman's last point is not quite accurate. The incident happened at Emneth Hungate, as I think he must be clear. He should also remember that police numbers in Norfolk have fallen by 50-odd since May 1997.
No one would want to argue that crime patterns have suddenly changed in the past two and a half years—I certainly would not wish to do so. Criminals have been becoming more mobile and more technologically sophisticated for a number of years. As the Minister will know, they have well-developed communication systems. People's life styles and working habits in rural areas have changed. Homes are left empty during the working day. Changes in agriculture have meant that the countryside is not as populated as it once was. Paradoxically, the introduction and great success of CCTV systems in cities and market towns, which was pioneered by the previous Government and has been continued by the present Government, have tended to drive the criminal to look further afield for his ill-gotten gains. Obviously, that does not mean that I do not support CCTV. May I make a short plea for the CCTV bid for a rural area based in west Norfolk? I hope that the Minister will look upon it with kindness when it reaches his desk.
The effect of all of that has been to make rural communities feel more exposed to and threatened by crime and to expose the difference in funding allocations between rural and urban areas, of which the Minister will be aware.
Home Office Ministers are to receive a deputation from 12 rural police authorities asking that they accept the findings of independent consultants engaged by their Department to the effect that it costs more to police

far-flung rural areas. The chairman of the Norfolk police authority's audit committee, Jim Wilson, was reported in the local press on 11 September as saying:
We must not allow this report to be shelved by Ministers. The research gives clear evidence that there are significant extra costs in rural areas which are currently not being recognised. Taxpayers in rural areas are paying relatively more through taxes and council tax than residents in urban areas, but for a lesser service.
The chief constable of Norfolk has calculated that to bring his force to the level of effectiveness that he would wish it to achieve, he needs an additional 400 officers. He has also calculated, perhaps more realistically, that, if the Minister accepted sparsity as a factor to be used in the allocation of police funding, it would mean an additional 132 officers for the county.
The Minister will certainly say that effective policing is not merely a matter of police numbers, and I would agree. However, again as reported in the local press, the chief constable of Norfolk puts his dilemma as follows:
The real difficulty for me is handling the fear of crime issues and confidence in local police. No matter how hard I try to describe how we allocate scarce resources, people are going to be sceptical because all they see are scarce numbers of police officers on the ground.
That is how the chief constable put it.
The issue is partly one of public perception, therefore. The facts may inform us that a well-equipped and technologically advanced police force—mobile and fast moving—is the way to beat crime, and yet the perception of the public is that visible police officers, making their presence felt in the communities, are the only way to prevent and deter crime and to restore confidence in the protection that the police can afford to the citizen. When we consider that, in the western Norfolk police area, which covers an area of 560 square miles, 34 police officers are on duty at any one time when the force is up to strength, which it is not, it is clear that public expectations are not being met.

Mr. Keith Simpson: In my constituency, in the town of Reepham where I live, I have been burgled twice in two and a half years. My right hon. Friend is no doubt aware that there is no full-time police presence in Reepham—a market town of 4,000 people. She is right that we must overcome the perception that any reaction will come from tens of miles away.

Mrs. Shephard: I agree with my hon. Friend, and so do many of the constituents who wrote to me following this summer's events. Their letters make disturbing reading. It is clear from those communications that people need to be able to feel that the police are not only equipped but willing to protect them and their property; that they can report crime without fear of reprisal or intimidation; and that, if they report crime, action will be taken. If they do not feel protected, they may feel justified in taking the law into their own hands, which is not what we want.
What should be done? First, as an open letter from a police officer to the Lynn News and Advertiser stated:
The place for an operational police officer is out on the streets, policing the community which pays our wages.
Obviously, as I have said, modern policing cannot be only about visible uniformed officers, but police numbers and visibility are key if public confidence is to return.
Secondly, policing methods must be seen and judged to be effective and responsive. People need to know that if they report crimes, action will result. At present, too many do not. A constituent, who supplied his full address, wrote to the Home Secretary on 5 September:
Much of the crime is not now reported, as the police may not even bother to attend let alone report the outcome, and they are never there to witness it for themselves. It is generally believed that crime figures presented to Chief Constables are those they would prefer, rather than the facts.
Thirdly, people cannot be allowed to live in fear of reprisals and intimidation if they report crimes against themselves or their property. The House will have noted the sad fact that although constituents and other concerned citizens have written to me, and I have quoted from their letters and will pass them to the Official Report, they do not wish their names and addresses to be given publicly. The whole incident has revealed that too many people feel like another man who wished to remain anonymous, who wrote:
I was unable to attend the public meeting for fear of reprisals … There were a lot of people who would like to have attended, but were too afraid, because we all fear that the police cannot protect us.
Another woman wishing to remain anonymous wrote:
Many more people would have attended the public meeting … to discuss the incident, but for fear of reprisals. Our home has been targeted often, this year we have had three robberies. It takes so long to get through to a police station that now we don't bother to report it. My two children have never dared to go into the village alone although they went to the village school. Now they have cars and fear that they will be vandalised if left and recognised. We the normal working law abiding people of this village feel victimised.
Farmers feel particularly exposed. In a survey undertaken by the BBC1 programme "Countryfile", 55 per cent. of farmers questioned had suffered burglary. Mr. Hipperson of Shouldham writes:
I do not believe in taking the law into one's own hands: the police and courts should administer the law, but both organisations are failing the countryside. Rural police are far too thin on the ground. Local police stations are too often shut. As the police are overextended, little or no action is often taken on good information from the public. Difficulties exist near county borders.
Many of the concerns that I have described are operational and a matter for the chief constable, and he is aware of them. The Norfolk police try their utmost to provide an effective service and should be congratulated on their efforts. It is disturbing, none the less, to hear a deputy chief constable say on the local radio that policing in the western division is near crisis point.
I look forward to the Minister's reply. His first step will be, I hope, a recognition that as his own independent consultants have pointed out, it costs more to police rural areas. His colleague the hon. Member for Norwich, South has already said that Norfolk has a strong case.
I had intended to welcome the Home Secretary's recent announcement of 5,000 more police officers for the country as a whole over the next three years. According to The Sunday Telegraph of 17 October, that announcement, made at the Labour party conference earlier this month, seems to have hit the buffers of the Treasury. I wonder whether the Minister can clarify the status of the Home Secretary's announcement. Was it conference hype? Did the Home Secretary mean it? He could not have been misleading the country. Did he or did he not have the permission of the Treasury and Cabinet to announce the extra posts?
I feel confident that the Minister will be able to clarify the position tonight and to confirm that when the Home Secretary says that there will be 5,000 more police posts, that is what he means and that is what we will see. In that case, the Minister will be able to tell the House tonight how the Home Secretary proposes to allocate those extra police resources and what account will be taken of rural sparsity in that allocation.
I hope that the Minister will reassure the House and rural people everywhere that he and his Government take their concerns seriously. It will not do for the right hon. Gentleman to exchange statistics, chop logic or blame the whole issue on the previous Government. Of course changing crime patterns and sociological change develop over years rather than months, but it is the task of the Government of the day to respond to such change, and indeed to the profound anxieties that I have described this evening.
I hope that the Minister will give a constructive response. If he does, it will be welcomed by rural communities in the light of the concern that they feel and which I have attempted to describe.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): I should like to thank the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) for raising the issue of crime in rural areas. As she will know, it is an issue dear to my heart and one in which the Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), has taken a particular interest. He has asked me to convey to her and the House his apologies for not being with us this evening. He is currently in Moscow at the G8 summit on organised crime. Hon. Members on both sides of the House, but particularly East Anglia Members, as he is and the right hon. Lady is, will be aware that, with the coast of East Anglia being as it is, the threat of organised crime, not least organised crime that has its origins in the east, is one about which we have to be ever vigilant.
Let us deal tonight with the issue of rural crime, on which this House has on occasion had cause to reflect. There are hon. Members in the Chamber who have raised the issue both in Adjournment debates and in debates on crime. We believe—as a Government we have taken measures to ensure this—that the whole community, police and public alike, needs to address crime within the context of an effective partnership. That can mobilise the resources of the community at every level in order to prevent and reduce crime and the impact of offending. Nowhere is that more true than in rural communities, where the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which this Government introduced, has been particularly welcomed as a focus for effective partnerships on the ground to reduce the impact of crime and, significantly, of the fear of crime.
I am aware from my experience as a former Minister with responsibility for the police of how successful the Crime and Disorder Act has been in East Anglia. A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting in Ipswich where I saw at first hand, on the ground, how the Crime and Disorder Act and the effective community partnerships that have developed in East Anglia—as they have elsewhere—are beginning to bear down on the problem.
However, we need to set the issue of rural crime in a clear context. The situation in Norfolk is worth examination. The latest Audit Commission figures show


that there were 67 crimes per thousand people in Norfolk—significantly below the national average of 78 crimes for every thousand people. The number of burglaries per thousand dwellings in Norfolk was almost half the national average: 10.9 against 20.5. As the police authority stated in its annual policing plan for 1999–2000:
Norfolk remains a relatively safe place to live in.
That is a tribute to the police and to the wider public in Norfolk. It is a sound basis on which we are able to proceed in partnership.
However, that does not mean that we do not have concerns about the fear and apprehension of crime. The right hon. Lady has realised—with the acumen that I would expect of her—that reducing crime levels is not simply a matter that can be linked to police numbers. On the contrary, if we consider crime in Norfolk, it has fallen steadily year on year, as police numbers have fallen year on year. Therefore, we must have an approach that recognises the complexity of the issue that we face and builds a response that is informed by reality.
Members on both sides of the House have a particular duty not to fuel the fear of crime by suggesting that there is a simple equation between police numbers and crime. That is something that the right hon. Lady will be concerned to ensure that she avoids in raising the matter in the way that she has done. I am happy to make it absolutely crystal clear, however, that the Government are indeed addressing the issue of police numbers. We are addressing it within a context—the right hon. Lady must remember this—in which it was the Government of whom she was a member who removed the power of the Home Secretary to set police numbers. It was her Government who, between 1993 and 1998, under budgets in which the right hon. Lady directly had a hand, saw the overall number of police officers fall in England and Wales by almost 1,500, at the same time as they told the country that they would increase overall numbers by 6,000. Those are the facts.

Mr. David Prior: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Boateng: No.
Those are the facts that the right hon. Lady must bear in mind. Having said that, let us respond to the challenge that she threw down. First, we heard a reasoned approach. Only at the end did she descend into party political acrimony and knockabout. If she expects right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches simply to accept that, she has another think coming. [Interruption.]
I am only too happy to return to the pledge made at Bournemouth by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary earlier this year, and to make it crystal clear that when my right hon. Friend announced a new crime-fighting fund for the police to recruit 5,000 new police officers over the next three years, he meant just that—£35 million, all new money, to be spent in the first year to kick-start the programme. The programme is to be delivered by a challenge fund—the crime-fighting fund which is ring-fenced money. The right hon. Lady knows the meaning of ring-fenced money, because it was something that the Conservative Government, when they had stewardship of police in this country, were never prepared

to introduce in respect of support for the police. The money will be ring-fenced money, which all forces—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I must ask hon. Members to keep good order—they cannot keep interrupting the Minister.

Mr. Boateng: All forces can bid for a share of the money. Chief constables will not be able to spend the money on other priorities, nor can they use the funds to divert existing money already earmarked for police recruitment to other priorities. That means that there will be 5,000 more police recruits than there would otherwise have been—about that there is no doubt. The money is new money, starting with £35 million next year, to provide 5,000 extra police recruits over three years. I cannot spell it out more simply than that.
It is precisely that approach to the issue that has been warmly welcomed by the police. I am sure that the right hon. Lady will be gracious enough to accept that her local chief constable, Ken Williams, has made it clear, in respect of the very dilemma she has outlined:
The good thing is that the Government is listening to our dilemma.
Not only are we listening, we are delivering. We are delivering new powers to the police and the courts—

Mr. Keith Simpson: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Boateng: No.
We have delivered new powers through anti-social behaviour orders, which will be of enormous value to rural communities throughout the country. In the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Bill, we have given new powers for the protection of witnesses and the victims of crime. That legislation directly addresses the concerns the right hon. Lady has rightly raised about the way in which people are sometimes fearful to come forward and make their complaints. Through the Crime and Disorder Act, we ensure that it is possible to build partnerships between local authorities, the police and the community that will enable communities to fight crime effectively.

Mr. Simpson: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many extra police officers Norfolk will get?

Mr. Boateng: I have made it absolutely crystal clear that it will be for the chief constable and his police authority to make the bid—it is an operational matter. Norfolk has as much chance as any other area to make a bid and to have that bid receive proper consideration. In the meantime, we are ensuring that the police have the necessary powers and resources. More money is being spent on policing in Norfolk this year than was spent last year—above the national average. Above all, the Government are willing to listen.

Dr. George Turner: I understand the problems my right hon. Friend faces. The voice from the past that neglected policing in Norfolk is now at the forefront of making the case for police resources and, in some ways, stirring trouble. Does he accept that, for those living in isolated areas, even if the crime rates are relatively low, the very isolation makes the problems worse? In addition,


there is a real need to ensure that Norfolk constabulary is properly funded in terms of equipment. I have been on operations where it is clear that that is needed.

Mr. Boateng: I accept that it is important to make sure that Norfolk is properly funded in respect of its communications system. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced a £50 million investment

toward the cost of a new national communications system for the police. That will benefit rural areas, including Norfolk. We offer practical assistance for rural areas, not cheap rhetoric.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.